VNNEX 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR: 
$Tife  attir  Qiswbtcies  of 

CHAELES  GOODYEAE. 

"One  soweth  and  another  reapeth." 


BY  REV.  BRADFORD  K.  PEIBOB. 


PUBLISHED   BY   CARLTON  &  PORTER, 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL  UNION,  200  MULBEBBY-8TREET 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1866, 
BY  CABLTON  &  PORTER, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for 
the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

IHTKODXJCTOBT. 

Dr.  Bacon  upon  Mr.  Goodyear  —  Attracted  little  Notice  — 
Effect  of  Litigation  — False  Stories  —  Little  Known  of  the  Man 
—  "Palissy  the  Potter"  —  Comparison  of  their  Inventions  — 
Character  of  this  Biography  —  Adapted  to  our  Inventive  Com- 
munity—  Effect  of  Goodyear's  Life  on  an  Inventor — Materials 
for  this  Life Page  11 

CHAPTER  IL 

PARENTAGE. 

City  of  New  Haven  —  Tale  College  —  Birth  of  Charles  Good- 
year— Amasa  Goodyear — Goodyear's  Mother — Cynthia  Bate- 
man  18 

CHAFER  HL 

EARLY  LIFE. 

Home  of  Childhood  —  Removes  to  Naugatuck  —  Button 
Manufactory  —  Improved  Hay-forks  —  Early  Employment  of 
Charles  —  Habits  when  a  Boy  — Studies  with  Mr.  William 


4  CONTENTS. 

De  Forest  —  Religious  Impressions  and  Union  with  Church  — 
Desires  to  be  a  Minister  — His  View  of  Providence  in  the 
Direction  of  his  Life Page  21 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  HABDWAKE  MEBCHANT. 

In  Company  with  Father  —  Marriage  with  Clarissa  Beecher 

—  Character  of  Mrs.  Goodyear  —  Removal  to  Philadelphia  — 
First  Domestic  Hardware  Store  in  America  —  Recollections  of 
Daughter  —  Charles's  Severe  Illness  in  1830  —  Losses  in  Busi- 
ness—  Great   Embarrassments   and   Final   Failure  —  Manner 
hi  which  he  bore  his  Troubles  —  Imprisonment  for  Debt  — 
Sufferings  at  this  Time  —  Mr.  Goodyear's  View  of  them  — 
Invention    in   Jail  —  Commencement   of  the    India    Rubber 
Manufacture 28 

CHAPTER  V. 

GUM    ELASTIC. 

Various  Names  — Dr.  Priestly,  1770  — French  Scholars  in 
1730  —  Abundance  of  the  Gum  —  Early  Manufactures  in  Para, 
Brazil  —  The  Portuguese  convert  it  to  Practical  Uses  —  The 
Tree — Collecting  the  Sap — Preparation  for  Use  —  Manufacture 
of  Shoes  —  First  Shoes  in  Boston  —  Rapid  Increase  of  Impor- 
tation—  Commencement  of  Trade  in  France  and  England  — 
M'Intosh  Overcoats  — Roxbury,  Massachusetts —Mr.  Chaffee 

—  Immense  Amount  of  Capital  Invested  hi  Business 43 


CONTENTS.  5 

CHAPTER  VL 

OCCASION  OF  HIS  EXPEKIMENTS  IN  GUM  ELASTIC. 

Yisit  to  Store  of  Rubber  Company  in  New  York  —  Improve- 
ment in  Life  Preservers  —  Mr.  Goodyear  advised  by  Agent  to 
Experiment  in  Rubber — Difficulties  Business  had  encountered 
—  Great  Losses  in  Goods  through  Decomposition  —  Com- 
panies ruined  —  Daniel  Webster's  India  Rubber  Suit  — Good- 
year felt  called  to  Redeem  the  Article  —  Chemists  and 
Physicians  experiment  in  vain  —  Great  Discoveries  made  by 
Accident  — Use  of  Chloroform,  Dr.  Wells  —  Steam-Engine  by 
Watt Page  52 

CHAPTER  VBL 


On  Jail  Limits  — Experiment  in  Gum  Elastic  — By  Use  of 
Magnesia  secures  beautiful  White  Color — Secures  a  Home  in 
New  Haven  —  Commences  manufacturing  Rubber  Shoes  — 
Life  Boats  — Shoes  prove  to  be  a  Failure  —  Experiment  with 
India  Rubber  Sap  —  The  Irishman's  Trial  of  the  new  Material 
—  Friends  discouraged  —  Great  Straits,  sells  Furniture  — 
Family  board  —  Linen  sold  to  pay  Rent  —  Son  dies  —  Strong 
Faith  — Goes  to  New  York  — His  Appearance  at  this  Tune  — 
Mr.  De  Forest  — Room  hi  Gold-street  —  Experiment  with 
Quick-lime  —  Manufactures  beautiful  Articles  —  First  thin 
Sheets  of  Gum  — Mr.  Goodyear  designated  by  his  Dress  — 


6  CONTENTS. 

Obtains  Patent  and  Public  Notice  — Goods  still  sticky —  Not 
Depressed — Commences  afresh  —  Acid  Gas  Process  —  Patent 
secured  —  Attracts  great  Attention  —  Visits  "Washington  — 
Letters  of  President  Jackson,  and  Clay  and  Calhoun  —  Nearly 
suffocated  by  Gas  —  Dr.  Bradshaw  —  Specimens  sent  to 
England  by  Doctor  —  Obtains  a  Partner  with  Money  —  Opens 
a  Factory  on  Staten  Island  — Store  for  sale  of  Goods  — Re- 
moves to  Staten  Island  —  General  Failures  —  Fortune  of  Part- 
ner swept  away  —  Darkest  Hours Page  63 


CHAPTER 

THE  HOUR  OF  TRTAT.. 

Furniture  Pawned  for  Bread  —  Illustration  of  Providence  — 
One  Set  of  Tea-cups  —  Meeting  with  Mr.  De  Forest  — Tries  in 
vain  to  start  up  the  Staten  Island  Factory  —  Goes  to  Roxbury, 
Massachusetts  — Finds  Friends  —  Experiments  of  Chaffee  — 
Gives  Mr.  Goodyear  Use  of  Machinery  —  New  Method  of  con- 
structing Shoes  —  Sold  Patents  —  Manufactures  Piano- Forte 
Covers  and  sells  Licenses  —  Large  Profits  —  Removes  Family 
to  Roxbury-r-  Simple  Habits  — Meets  Nathaniel  Hay  ward  — His 
Use  of  Sulphur— German  Chemist— It  attracts  Mr.  Good- 
year's  Attention  and  he  buys  Hay  ward's  Patent  —  Experi- 
ments under  favorable  Circumstances  —  Printed  Newspapers 
: —  Gathers  the  other  Members  of  his  Family — Troubles  before 
him  —  Finds  that  only  the  Surface  is  cured  —  The  unfortunate 
Government  Mail  Bags -^  Cause  of  Failure  —  His  View  of  it— 


CONTENTS.  7 

Effect  of  this  Failure  —  Utter  Ruin  threatens  him  —  Protesta- 
tion of  Friends  against  his  further  Experiments  —  Manufac- 
tures a  few  Articles  for  Support  —  His  own  Zeal  unabated  — 
Experiments  hi  Sulphur  —  Accidental  Discovery  of  the  effect 
of  a  High  Degree  of  Heat  —  Effect  of  this  Discovery  upon  him- 
self—  Effect  upon  his  Friends  —  His  Confidence  hi  his  Dis- 
covery—Difficulties in  perfecting  his  "Work  —  First  successful 
Experiment  —  Eemoves  to  Lynn  —  "Woburn  —  Utterly  without 
Means  — Reduced  nearly  to  Beggary— Sells  Children's  School- 
books  —  Testimony  of  a  Witness  — Professor  Silliman's  Certifi- 
cate—Oven constructed  but  Experiment  fails— Noble  An- 
swer to  French  Manufacturers  —  The  Terrible  Snow-storm,  and 
the  Suffering  of  his  Family  —  Daniel  Webster  —  Again  in 
Prison  — Disappointed  of  Money  hi  Boston— Walks  Home  to 
Woburn  — Death  of  Youngest  Son  — Aid  and  Rebuke  from  a 
Friend Page  86 

CHAPTER  IX.    • 

THE  NEW  ELASTIC  METAL. 

Mr.  De  Forest  sends  him  Money  — Goes  to  New  York— Mr. 
William  Rider  agrees  to  supply  Capital  for  Manufacturing  — 
Better  Circumstances  —  Mr.  Rider  fails  —  Began  to  Manufac- 
ture in  Springfield  — Shirred  Goods  — Mr.  De  Forest  takes  Mr. 
Rider's  Place  —  Debtor's  Prison  —  Takes  out  his  Patent  — 
Description  of  Elastic  Metal  — India  Rubber  Cloth— Factory 
in  Springfield  —  Naugatuck  —  Sells  Licenses  —  Why  sold 


8  CONTENTS. 

at  small  Price— Why  he  continued  the  unprofitable  Work 
of  Inventing — Mr.  Parton's  View  of  his  Experiments 
—  Removes  to  New  Haven — Mr.  Hunt's  Impression  of  Mr. 
Goodyear — Seeks  to  relieve  Suffering  by  bis  Inventions  — 
Generous  Traits  —  His  Piety  —  The  great  Object  of  hia 
Life  —  His  Sentiments  in  reference  to  those  depriving  him 
of  hia  Eights— Judge  Holt's  Opinion  —  Reply  to  Son  in 
reference  to  bestowing  Gifts  on  the  Unworthy  —  Rapid  In- 
crease of  Rubber  Business  —  Patriotic  Desire  to  benefit  the 
Army  and  Navy  of  his  Country  —  Interested  in  Experi- 
ments relating  to  Preservation  of  Life  —  Letter  to  his  Brother- 
in-law— Hia  Views  of  Economy— About  India  Rubber 
Sails Page  130 

CHATTER  X. 

MB.  GOODYEAB  IN  KUBOPK 

Plans  a  Visit  to  Europe  —  Desired  a  Recognition  of  hia 
Claim  as  Inventor — Wished  to  introduce  his  various  Applica- 
tions—  International  Exhibition  —  Beautiful  Specimens  of  hia 
Goods  in  Exhibition — Received  Grand  Council  Medal  —  Sailed 
for  Liverpool  —  Fruitless  Attempts  to  establish  a  Business  — 
Death  of  Wife  —  Mr.  Hunt's  View  of  Mrs.  Goodyear  —  Dr.  Dut- 
ton's  Portraiture  — Crushing  Blow— Poor  Health  — What  hia 
Wife  was  to  him  —  Married  to  Miss  Wardell— Wife's  Family 
— Brightening  Prospects  —  Prepares  for  French  Exhibition  — 
Removes  to  Paria. . .  . .  166 


CONTENTS.  9 

CHAPTER  XL 

MB.  GOODYEAR  IS  FRANCE. 

Commencement  of  Rubber  Trade  —  Mr.  Morey's  Negotia- 
tions —  Fits  up,  at  great  Expense,  an  India  Rubber  Court  in 
the  Exhibition — Mr.  Goodyear  besought  by  his  Countrymen 
in  Paris  to  do  all  he  could  for  Exhibition  —  Honorable  Distinc- 
tions—  Number  of  Companies  formed  —  Spread  of  Business 
throughout  Europe  —  Discouragements  and  Failures  —  Pro- 
tested Notes  —  His  Creditors  begin  to  trouble  him  —  Arrest 
for  Debt  — Debtor's  Prison  — Mrs.  Goodyear  secures  his  Dis- 
charge—  Employment  in  Prison  —  Two  Americans  —  Writer 
in  "Hours  at  Home"  — His  Confidence  not  Shaken  —  Book  of 
Job  —  Providential  View  of  these  Sufferings  Page  If  6 

CHAPTER  XIL 

RETURN  TO  ENGLAND. 

Leaves  Paris  for  England  —  His  French  Troubles  follow  him 
—  Imprisoned,  but  soon  released  —  His  Reflections  upon  his 
Troubles— Severe  Illness  —  Removes  to  Bath  — Two  Years  of 
Feebleness  — Affairs  in  the  United  States  require  his  Atten- 
tion—Continued his  Studies  through  all— "Wakeful  through 
the  Night  to  continue  his  Investigations  —  Life-saving  Inven- 
tions—Feelings at  learning  the  Number  of  Drowning  Persons 
—Wife's  Jewels  pawned 193 


10  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

CLOSING  LABOKB  AND  DEATH. 

His  Expenses  greater  than  his  Receipts  in  developing  his 
Discovery  —  Takes  Measures  to  secure  Extension  of  Patent  — 
His  Claims  to  it  —  Powerfully  opposed  —  The  great  Calmness 
of  Goodyear  in  reference  to  the  Result—  Letter  written  the 
Day  before  the  Decision  of  the  Question  —  Hon.  J.  T.  Brady  — 
Patent  renewed  —  Buys  a  House  in  "Washington  —  Enjoyment 
in  it—  His  Workshop  —  Results  of  his  Discovery  —  Health 
Declines  —  His  Religious  Life  —  Sickness  of  Daughter  in  New- 
Haven  —  Leaves  Washington  to  visit  her  —  Steward  of 
Steamer  Montebello  —  Death  of  Daughter  —  Taken  Sick  in 
New  York—  Wife  sent  for  —  Last  Sickness  —  Sufferings  se- 
vere—Death .................................  Page  200 

APPENDIX..,  ..  219 


STEEL  PORTBAIT Frontispiece. 

MACHINE Page  137 

ENGLISH  MEDAL 166 

VULCANITE  COUBT 169 

FRENCH  MEDAL  . .  . .  118 


THE 

TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

SAYS  Dr.  Bacon,  in  a  sermon  preached  in  his 
own  church,  in  New  Haven,  the  Sabbath  suc- 
ceeding the  funeral  of  Mr.  Charles  Goodyear, 
"  the  singular  story  of  his  life,  and  the  great- 
ness of  the  contribution  which  he 'has  made  to 
the  wealth  and  welfare,  not  of  his  native  city 
only  but  of  his  country,  and  to  the  commerce, 
industry,  and  material  civilization  of  the  world, 
will  justify  my  reference  to  him  in  connection 
with  the  subject  of  discourse." 

Probably  no  man  who  has  made  a  discovery 
at  once  so  great,  and  of  such  immediate,  prac- 
tical benefit  to  the  race,  ever  before  passed  so 


12  TBIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB. 

quietly  out  of  his  place  and  generation,  receiv- 
ing so  slight  an  acknowledgment  for  the  service 
he  has  performed.  The  long  and  bitter  litiga- 
tion conducted  in  his  name  gave  a  very  false 
conception  of  his  character  to  those  who  only 
knew  of  the  man  as  he  was  represented  by  per- 
sons maligning  his  motives,  and  depreciating 
his  invention,  in  order  to  deprive  him  of  his 
rightful  claims,  and  to  add  to  the  wealth  they 
were  making  out  of  his  discoveries.  The 
false  stories  that  were  circulated  in  reference 
to  the  immense  amounts  of  money  received 
upon  his  patents,  and  of  the  lavish  and  care- 
less manner  in  which  he  was  said  to  squander 
it,  in  order  to  hinder  his  obtaining  an  extension 
of  his  patents,  prejudiced  many  persons  against 
one  of  the  most  unostentatious,  personally 
economical,  pure-minded,  and  pious  men  that 
has  adorned  his  generation  by  his  life  and 
discoveries.  There  is  scarcely  a  man  whose 
labors  have  been  so  conspicuous,  whose  ex- 


TRIALS  OP  AN  INVENTOR.  13 

emplary,  inner  and  spiritual  life  is  BO  little 
known. 

One  cannot  become  acquainted  with  his 
remarkable  history  without  being  reminded  of 
Bernard  Palissy,  the  sturdy  old  Huguenot  of 
France.  Mr.  Goodyear's  was  the  more  suffer- 
ing and  sublimer  life  of  the  two,  Palissy's 
invention  was  only  a  beautiful  enamel,  which 
gave  him  the  name  of  the  "  Potter,"  and  when 
he  had  once  discovered  it  his  sufferings  and 
sucrifices  on  its  accounts  ceased,  and  he  became 
the  honored  and  remunerated  guest  of  crowned 
heads.  True,  he  died  a  glorious  and  resolute 
prisoner  in  the  Bastile,  for  refusing  to  renounce 
the  doctrines  of  the  Reformed  religion ;  but  he 
experienced  no  further  hardships  in  the  appli- 
cation of  his  beautiful  discovery  after  he  had 
once  fallen  upon  it. 

Mr.  Goodyear  suffered  and  sacrificed  to  the 
full  measure  of  the  pious  "  Potter "  for  ten 
years,  and  then  for  sixteen  years  after,  to  the 


14  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB. 

day  of  his  death,  lived  a  life  of  almost  eqnal 
self-denial  and  unrequited  toil,  in  order  to 
develop  and  bestow  upon  his  fellow-men  the 
foil  benefit  of  his  invention. 

No  religious  inspiration  "sustained  Palissy 
over  his  furnace,  and  no  inward  persuasion, 
that  God  had  chosen  him  for  the  purpose  of 
certainly  accomplishing  his  appointed  work, 
encouraged  him.  But  Goodyear's  life-work 
was  a  religious  mission.  With  opportunities 
for  securing  an  immense  fortune,  he  laid  them 
all  aside ;  never  devoted  a  day  or  a  thought  to 
this  end  simply;  sought  no  relief  from  labor 
or  addition  to  his  personal  comforts,  rendered 
possible  by  an  increase  of  income,  but  used  all 
the  means  that  came  into  his  hand,  and  even 
anticipated  the  expected  gains  of  coming 
years,  in  order  to  perfect  the  work  he  was 
persuaded  God  had  given  him  to  do.  In  all 
his  reading,  the  writer  recollects  the  record  of 
scarcely  another  life,  out  of  sacred  pages,  so 


TRIALS  OP  AN  INVENTOR.  15 

single  in  its  purpose,  and  so  pure  in  its 
motives. 

The  present  volume  is  intended  to  present 
only  the  story  of  his  life.  The  author  has 
indulged  in  few  reflections.  The  history  car- 
ries its  own  moral  with  it.  Our  people  are 
an  inventive  people.  The  Patent  Office  in 
"Washington  is  crowded  with  models.  The 
life  of  Goodyear  will  present  a  fine  study, 
and  an  admirable  example,  for  young  Amer- 
icans whose  minds  are  quickened  by  the  splen- 
did results  which  have  followed  the  inventive 
faculty  of  our  countrymen,  and  given  a  bias  in 
that  direction  to  their  own  thoughts. 

Said  a  gentleman,*  whose  name  has  become 
well  known  in  connection  with  a  valuable  pat- 
ent for  the  concentration  of  milk,  to  a  son  of 
Mr.  Goodyear :  "  After  experimenting  unsuc- 
cessfully for  a  number  of  years,  I  should  have 
given  up  in  despair  if  I  had  not  read  a  sketch 
*  Gail  Borden. 


16  TEIALS  OP  AN  INVENTOR. 

of  your  father's  life.  This  inspired  me  to  con- 
tinue my  work  until  success  was  accomplished." 

This  biography  is  published  that  others  also 
may  be  encouraged  to  perseverance,  even  amid 
disappointments,  in  the  life-work  to  which  God 
commissions  them. 

The  materials  for  this  sketch  were  limited. 
Mr.  Goodyear  prepared  a  short  account  of  his 
life  while  engaged  upon  his  experiments  in 
rubber,  one  copy  of  which  was  printed  upon 
gum  elastic  paper,  and  bound  in  hard  rubber, 
elegantly  carved — in  many  respects  the  most 
remarkable  volume  ever  published. 

The  legal  controversies,  spreading  over  the 
space  of  seven  years,  contain  much  material, 
although  widely  scattered,  to  illustrate  this 
singular  life.  Mr.  Parton  prepared  and  pub- 
lished in  the  North  American  Keview  for  July, 
1865,  a  very  animated  sketch  of  Mr.  Good- 
year's  experiments  in  India  rubber  and  their 
results.  His  pastor  in  New  Haven,  Kev. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB.  17 

Dr.  Dutton,  and  Kev.  Dr.  Bacon,  of  the  same 
city,  preached  memorial  discourses  at  the  time 
of  Mr.  Goodyear's  decease.  From  all  these 
sources  the  present  biography  has  drawn  its 
connected  history  of  the  principal  events  in 
the  life  of  the  great  inventor ;  but  the  author 
has  been  especially  indebted  to  the  surviving 
v  members  of  the  family  for  access  to  valuable 
papers  and  private  letters,  and  for  incidents 
that  have  not  been  heretofore  published.  He 
has  also  been  placed  under  great  obligation 
to  Rev.  A.  S.  Hunt  for  personal  reminiscences 
while  a  private  secretary  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  and 

residing  in  his  family. 

2 


18  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTEE  n. 

PARENTAGE. 

ENGLAND  has  no  city  more  attractive 
than  New  Haven.  Dating  back  for  its  origin  to 
the  early  settlement  of  the  country ;  its  favorable 
location  for  commerce  ;  its  fine  natural  scenery ; 
the  establishment  of  Tale  College  within  its 
limits,  and  the  opportunities  for  education  of- 
fered by  this  institution  and  other  public  and 
private  schools  enjoying  a  wide  reputation,  have 
drawn  to  the  "  Elm  City  "  a  large  and  intelli- 
gent population,  and  raised  the  general  educa- 
tion of  the  community  to  a  high  standard. 

In  this  city,  and  surrounded  by  such  in- 
fluences, the  subject  of  this  sketch  passed  his 
early  childhood.  CHARLES  GOODYEAR  was 
born  in  New  Haven  December  29,  1800,  just 
a  hundred  years  after  the  founding  of  Yale 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  19 

College.  He  was  the  son  of  Amasa  Goodyear, 
the  eldest  of  six  children.  His  father  was  a 
descendant  of  Stephen  Goodyear,  who  was 
an  associate,  and  afterward  the  successor,  of 
Governor  Eaton,  who,  at  the  head  of  a  com- 
pany of  London  merchants,  founded  the  colony 
of  New  Haven  in  1638.  Mr.  Goodyear,  the 
father,  exhibited  the  same  enterprise,  intelli- 
gence, and  sincere  piety  that  marked  the  prin- 
cipal founders  of  the  New  England  colonies. 
He  was  a  pioneer,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  man- 
ufacture of  American  hardware,  and  a  leader 
of  that  great  company  of  inventors  who  have 
dotted  the  banks  of  every  stream  in  Con- 
necticut with  mills,  and  made  the  state  to 
become  the  Lancashire  of  the  country. 

The  senior  Mr.  Goodyear  was  a  man  of  gen- 
erous impulses,  a  devoted  Christian,  enjoying 
the  confidence  and  respect  of  the  community. 
He  was  noted  in  his  religious  life  for  his  great 
liberality  toward  those  differing  from  himself  in 


20  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

opinion.  He  could  not  endure  to  hear  other 
professed  Christians  spoken  of  in  an  uncharitable 
manner,  and  felt  no  sympathy  with  the  violent 
attacks  sometimes  made  in  public  addresses  on 
Koman  Catholics.  He  was  a  noble  Christian 
gentleman,  and  many  of  his  characteristics  will 
be  noticed  as  reappearing  in  the  life  of  his  Bon. 

Mr.  Charles  Goodyear  was  very  fond  of  his 
mother,  and  offered  her  the  utmost  respect  and 
affection  until  she  was  taken  from  him.  Her 
name  was  Cynthia  Bateman.  She  was  a  wo- 
man of  more  than  ordinary  talent,  and  well 
deserved  the  regard  of  her  family.  She  was  a 
dignified,  affectionate,  devout  woman,  conscien- 
tiously discharging  all  the  duties  of  a  mother 
and  early  teacher  of  her  children. 

Such  was  the  parentage  of  Charles  Good- 
year, and  the  strong  religious  and  intellectual 
direction  given  to  his  early  life. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INYENTOR.  21 


CHAPTER  in. 

EARLY  LIFE. 

MR.  AMASA  GOODYEAR,  while  residing  in  New 
Haven,  was  engaged  in  commercial  business. 
He  owned  the  neck  of  land  which  is  well- 
known  in  the  city  now  as  "  Oyster  Point,"  and 
here  was  the  pleasant  homestead  where  Charles 
passed  his  early  boyhood.  Merchants  of  New 
Haven  and  Hartford,  at  this  time,  carried  on 
quite  an  extensive  trade  with  the  West  Indies, 
and  it  was  in  this  business  that  Mr.  Goodyear 
was  engaged.  But  while  Charles  was  still 
young,  his  father  bought  an  interest  in  a  patent 
for  the  manufacture  of  buttons,  and  removed 
to  Naugatuck,  a  village  situated  upon  a  small 
river  of  the  same  name,  about  eighteen  miles 
from  New  Haven,  in  order  to  avail  himself  of 
the  water-power  obtained  here  for  carrying  on 


22  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

his  new  business.  In  1807  he  commenced  the 
manufacture  of  the  first  pearl  buttons  made  in 
America ;  and  in  the  war  of  1812  he  supplied 
the  government  with  metal  buttons. 

The  senior  Mr.  Goodyear  was  a  very  inge- 
nious man.  He  made  several  valuable  improve- 
ments, particularly  in  the  manufacturing  of 
agricultural  implements,  for  which  he  held 
patents.  One  proved  to  be  very  valuable. 
Before  his  day,  hay  and  manure  forks  were 
made  by  blacksmiths  out  of  wrought  iron ;  but 
he  constructed  and  obtained  a  patent  for  the 
beautiful  strong  and  elastic  steel  fork,  which 
long  bore  the  name  of  father  and  son,  and 
brought  quite  a  fortune  to  them.  It  is  a  curi- 
ous fact,  showing  the  reluctance  with  which 
plain  people  admit  of  any  change,  that  when 
these  forks  were  first  offered,  no  one  would  buy 
them,  and  the  inventor  had  some  difficulty  in 
bestowing  them  gratuitously  upon  the  farmers, 
and  securing  their  promise  to  give  them  a  fair 


TRIALS  OF  AN   INVENTOR.  23 

trial  and  report  the  result.  "When  their  excel- 
lence became  known,  no  others  in  the  market 
could  be  so  readily  sold.  The  business  in- 
cluded the  manufacturing  of  military  and  other 
kinds  of  metal  buttons,  spoons,  scythes,  and 
clocks.  "What  a  wonderful  school  this  man- 
ufactory must  have  been  for  a  thoughtful  and 
ingenious  boy ! 

A  farm  was  connected  with  the  business,  and 
between  the  two  a  considerable  portion  of 
Charles's  hours  was  taken  up ;  so  that,  when  a 
boy,  the  assistance  which,  his  father  found 
necessary  to  require  of  him  limited  his  school- 
ing. But  he  was  always  a  studious  boy.  He 
was  quite  different  from  children  of  his  age. 
"When  but  ten  years  old  he  was  noticed  for  the 
seriousness  and  manliness  of  his  behavior.  He 
did  not  enjoy  the  usual  and  wholesome  boyish 
plays ;  but  if  missed  at  any  time  was  sure  to 
be  found  in  his  bedroom,  reading  his  Bible  or 
some  serious  book.  He  had  no  particular  fond- 


34  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

ness  for  machinery,  but  was  constantly  con- 
sidering what  improvements  could  be  made  in 
the  different  articles  of  service  employed  in  the 
house  or  upon  the  farm.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that 
while  he  was  a  schoolboy  a  circumstance  occur- 
red which  pointed  toward  the  final  business  of 
his  life.  He  happened  to  take  up  a  thin  scale  of 
India  rubber,  peeled  from  a  bottle,  and  it  was 
suggested  to  his  mind  that  it  would  become  a 
very  useful  fabric  if  it  could  be  made  uniform- 
ly so  thin,  and  could  be  prepared  so  as  to  pre- 
vent its  melting  and  sticking  together  in  a 
solid  mass,  as  it  did  under  the  simple  warmth 
of  his  hand.  This  very  thing  in  the  providence 
of  God  he  was  afterward  enabled  to  do. 

When  he  was  sixteen,  Mr.  William  De  Forest, 

then  twenty,  (whose  sister  afterward  became 
the  wife  of  Mr.  Charles  Goodyear,  and  whose 
generous  aid,  to  a  large  amount,  enabled  Mr. 
Goodyear  to  bring  his  great  discovery  before  the 
public,)  became  a  private  tutor,  for  a  number 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  25 

of  months,  in  Mr.  Amasa  Goodyear's  family. 
He  remembers  Charles  as  being  a  remarkably 
mature  boy,  a  good  scholar,  eager  to  improve 
himself,  and  giving  fine  promise  for  the  future. 
His  father  had  great  confidence  in  his  judg- 
ment, and  consulted  him  in  his  business. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  united  with 
the  Congregational  Church  in  Naugatuck.  As 
early  as  his  eleventh  year  he  had  very  strong 
religious  convictions.  At  this  early  period  he 
had  a  very  earnest  desire  to  become  a  minister 
of  the  Gospel,  but  the  condition  of  his  father's 
business  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to 
secure  the  preparation  he  thought  to  be 
necessary  to  enter  upon  this  solemn  work, 
or  even  to  allow  him  to  leave  his  home. 
He  was  ever  the  dutiful  son,  and  remark- 
able for  the  reverence  which  he  had  for 
his  parents.  There  was  another  important 
work  which  Divine  Providence  intended  he 
should  perform,  and,  perhaps  for  this  reason, 


26  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

overruled  his  strong  desire  to  benefit  his  fellow- 
men  by  preaching,  by  turning  his  fervent  and 
self-denying  devotion  into  another  channel. 
When  his  way  was  hedged  up  in  every  other 
direction,  and  his  mind  was  singularly  turned  to 
consider  the  subject  which  afterward  employed 
all  his  powers  during  all  the  remainder  of  his 
life,  he  says,  "  a  strong  and  abiding  impression 
was  made  upon  him  that  an  object  so  desira- 
ble and  so  important,  and  so  necessary  to 
man's  comfort,  as  the  making  of  gum-elastic 
available  to  his  use,  was  most  certainly  placed 
within  his  reach."  This  presentiment,  of  which 
he  could  not  divest  himself,  under  the  most 
trying  adversity  stimulated  him  with  the  hope 
of  ultimately  attaining  this  object.  He  re- 
marks, very  properly,  that  "  He  who  directs  the 
operations  of  the  mind  can  turn  it  to  the 
development  of  the  properties  of  nature  in  his 
own  way,  and  at  the  time  when  they  are 
specially  needed.  The  creature  imagines  he 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  27 

is  executing  some  plan  of  his  own,  while  he 
is  simply  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  his 
Maker  for  executing  the  divine  purposes  of 
beneficence  to  the  race."  Just  when  most 
needed,  beds  of  coal  are  discovered  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  and  when  the  progress 
of  the  race  requires  the  art  of  printing  or  the 
power  of  steam,  the  right  man,  at  the  right 
time,  led  by  mysterious  providences,  and  with 
many  painful  human  struggles,  steps  forth  as 
the  discoverer.  After  Mr.  Goodyear  entered 
upon  his  great  work  he  never  for  a  moment 
doubted  that  God  clearly  indicated  to  him  his 
will  that  he  should  continue  in  it,  and  that 
he  would  ultimately  be  blessed  with  success. 

In  1816  Charles,  now  in  his  seventeenth 
year,  left  his  home  for  the  city  of  Philadel- 
phia, and  became  an  apprentice  with  the  firm 
of  Eogers  &  Brothers,  to  learn  the  hardware 
business.  He  remained  with  this  firm  until 
his  majority,  and  then  returned  to  Connecticut. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

THE  HARDWARE  MERCHANT. 

WITH  his  valuable  business  experience  he  now 
entered  into  partnership  with  his  father.  Mr. 
Goodyear,  senior,  had  made  many  important 
improvements  in  agricultural  implements,  and 
they  were  at  this  time  coming  rapidly  into 
use  and  affording  the  manufacturer  a  satis- 
factory return.  The  observation  of  the  good 
done  by  these,  in  lightening  the  burden  of 
labor,  made  a  powerful  impression  upon  the 
son,  and  strongly  tended  to  give  an  inventive 
bias  to  his  life. 

While  engaged  in  business  with  his  father, 
August  24,  1824,  he  was  united  in  marriage 
with  Clarissa  Beecher,  a  lady  every  way  fitted 
to  be  the  jcompanion  and  comforter  of  his  life. 
She  was  a  communicant  of  the  same  Church 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  29 

with  himself,  of  a  peculiarly  amiable  temper, 
endowed  with  great  fortitude,  and  sustained 
by  a  sincere  religious  faith.  She  was  devoted 
to  her  husband,  and  endured  without  a  mur- 
mur the  extraordinary  sacrifices  occasioned  by 
his  long-continued  and  unsuccessful  efforts,  be- 
fore he  made  his  great  discovery.  Although 
yielding  in  temper,  she  had  a  strong  hold  upon 
the  confidence  of  her  husband,  and  was  his 
constant  confidant  and  counselor.  In  the  heat 
of  his  fervent  nature,  when  suddenly  resolving 
upon  some  new  measure,  or  giving  way  to  the 
most  sanguine  expectations,  she  would  place 
her  hand  quietly  upon  his  shoulder  and  say, 
"  Do  not  make  up  your  mind  too  hastily ;  had 
you  not  better  wait  until  to-morrow?"  The 
touch  of  that  wise  and  gentle  hand  was  always 
effectual.  How  faithfully,  through  all  the  years 
of  his  trial,  this  most  excellent  Christian  woman 
supported  her  husband,  aiding  with  her  own 
hands  in  his  unremitting  experiments,  and  eym- 


30  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

pathizing  with  all  his  fluctuating  fortunes,, can 
only  be  known  by  those  who  were  the  constant 
observers  of  her  beautiful  life.  Her  life  was 
spared  long  enough  to  see  the  apparent  fulfill- 
ment of  their  long-deferred  hopes,  and  then 
she  was  mercifully  removed  before  other  seri- 
ous disappointments  clouded  the  fortunes  of 
her  husband. 

The  business  of  the  new  and  enterprising 
firm  was  increasing.  The  sales,  especially  of 
the  patent  forks,  were  large,  and  there  was 
evidently  a  fortune  in  it.  In  1826  he  removed 
with  his.  wife  to  Philadelphia,  and  opened  a 
store  for  the  sale  of  hardware.  The  firm  still 
continued  as  before,  the  manufactory  largely 
supplying  the  stock  of  the  store.  It  was  the 
first  establishment  for  the  sale  of  domestic 
hardware  in  the  country.  It  was  looked  upon 
at  first  with  great  distrust,  and  thought  to  be 
a  visionary  undertaking;  for  up  to  this  time 
the  whole  trade  in  hardware  had  been  in  im- 


TRIALS  OF  AN  IKVENTOB.  31 

ported  articles.  Under  the  enterprise  and 
good  management  of  Mr.  Charles  Goodyear 
the  house  rose  rapidly  in  reputation,  and  soon 
came  to  be  considered  one  of  the  best  estab- 
lished in  the  country.  Its  credit  was  ample, 
and  a  handsome  fortune  was  accumulated  by 
the  firm. 

Among  the  letters  written  at  this  time  to  his 
wife,  while  absent  upon  business  in  New  York, 
the  following  sentence,  so  characteristic  of  the 
man,  appears.  It  proved  to  be  no  hasty  or  tem- 
porary resolution  which  he  thus  recorded,  but 
it  became  the  law  of  his  life.  "  I  have  quit," 
he  writes,  "  smoking,  chewing,  and  drinkingj 
all  in  one  day.  You  cannot  form  an  idea  of 
the  extent  of  this  last  evil  in  this  city  among 
young  men.  By  the  way  of  setting  our  faces 
against  the  world  at  large,  I  invite  you  to  for- 
bid in  our  house  any  thing  stronger  than  wines 
and  cordials,  [this  was  long  before  total  ab- 
stinence days,]  except  in  cases  of  illness." 


32  /    TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

Among  the  earliest  recollections  of  his  eldest 
daughter,  then  very  young,  showing  the  spirit 
of  this  Christian  family,  is  that  of  passing  the 
afternoon  of  Sunday,  while  they  were  residing 
in  Philadelphia,  in  the  bedroom  of  her  father 
and  mother,  her  parents  showing  her  the  pic- 
tures in  the  family  Bible  and  teaching  her  the 
commandments.  Another  very  pleasant  mem- 
ory of  her  childhood  is  singularly  prophetic  of 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  her  father  entered 
upon  the  great  mission  of  his  life.  When  she 
was  in  her  eighth  year  she  was  sent  to  a  board- 
ing school  under  the  charge  of  ladies  connected 
with  the  Society  of  Friends,  about  a  mile  from 
her  home.  Upon  one  of  his  visits  to  the  school, 
her  father  brought  her  a  pair  of  India  rubber 
shoes,  the  first  she -had  seen.  "I  well  remem- 
ber," she  says,  "with  what  peculiar  pleasure 
he  gave  them  to  me,  and  how  enthusiastic  he 
seemed  about  their  value.  They  were  made 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  33 

of  the  native  gum,  very  clumsy,  and  bound 
round  the  ankle  with  fur.-' 

In  the  winter  of  1829  and  the  spring  of 
1830  the  health  of  Charles,  who  was  the  life 
of  the  concern,  entirely  broke  down.  He  had 
a  stubborn  attack  of  dyspepsia,  a  disease  that 
pursued  him  to  the  grave,  scarcely  relaxing  its 
hold  upon  him  for  a  day  during  the  remainder 
of  his  life,  and  often  confined  him  to  his  bed ; 
so  that  at  times  this  was  his  only  workshop, 
and  was  often  covered  with  the  implements  of 
his  experiments,  continued  even  in  his  great 
prostration.  At  this  time  his  disease  was  so 
severe  as  sometimes  temporarily,  as  his  friends 
thought,  to  affect  his  mind. 

To  this  condition  of  his  health,  which  must 
have  had  a  very  depressing  influence  upon 
him,  were  added  great  losses  in  business. 

The  transactions  of  the  firm  had  been  widely 
extended  in  different  states,  especially  at  the 
South,  and  they  allowed  their  customers  very 


34  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

liberal  credits.  The  failure  of  many  of  these, 
at  this  time,  to  meet  their  payments,  so  em- 
barrassed the  establishment  in  Philadelphia 
that  Mr.  Goodyear  thought  it  impossible  to  go 
on  with  their  business. 

As  the  firm  held  valuable  patents,  and  were 
engaged  in  bringing  out  certain  inventions 
that  could  only  be  rendered  of  service  to 
themselves  and  their  creditors  by  being  com- 
pleted, they  struggled  on  for  a  period  by 
securing  an  extension  of  their  payments. 
This  proved  to  be  only  a  temporary  relief, 
and,  after  some  discouraging  efforts,  the  whole 
business,  with  the  valuable  improvements  they 
had  made,  was  given  up  for  the  benefit  of 
their  creditors.  It  was  a  great  trial  to  Mr. 
Goodyear  to  yield  up  what  had  promised  to 
be  a  certain  and  large  fortune  to  him,  and 
what  afterward, '  to  those  who  were  so  for- 
tunate as  to  secure  the  right  in  these  inven- 
tions, proved  to  be  a  mine  of  wealth ;  but  he 


TRIALS  OF    AN  INVENTOR.  35 

submitted  to  what  seemed  to  him  a  providen- 
tial misfortune,  without  idle  regrets,  or  a  loss 
of  courage,  or  any  distrust  of  the  goodness  of 
God.  In  looking  back  upon  this  hour,  after 
many  years  of  such  disappointments  and 
struggles  with  poverty  as  few  have  experi- 
enced, with  the  rarest  good  temper  and  Chris- 
tian philosophy,  he  says :  "  In  reflecting  upon 
the  past,  as  relates  to  these  branches  of  indus- 
try, the  writer  is  not  disposed  to  repine,  and 
say  that  he  has  planted  and  others  have 
gathered  the  fruits.  The  advantages  of  a 
career  in  life  should  not  be  estimated  exclus- 
ively by  the  standard  of  dollars  and  cents,  as 
it  is  too  often  done.  Man  has  just  cause  for 
regret  when  he  sowa  and  no  one  reaps."  It 
is  a  satisfaction  to  know,  that  among  the 
numerous  domestic  hardware  houses  that  have 
since  been  established  in  all  our  large  cities, 
two  of  the  most  respectable  and  wealthy  are 
the  immediate  successors  of  the  original  firm. 


36  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

For  ten  years  after  this  failure  in  his  busi- 
ness, under  the  laws  then  existing,  Mr.  Good- 
year was  repeatedly  imprisoned  for  debt,  while 
seeking  all  the  while  so  to  develop  unfinished 
inventions  that  his  creditors  might  be  ulti- 
mately paid.  And  when,  in  after  years,  he 
began  to  receive  some  pecuniary  returns  for 
his  long,  self-denying  studies,  the  first  appro- 
priation of  money,  above  that  required  for  the 
development  of  his  invention,  was  made  to 
these  creditors,  although  time  and  law  had 
apparently  released  him  from  these  obligations. 
His  unwillingness  to  take  any  course  to  shel- 
ter himself  from  the  impatient  demands  which 
he  could  not  meet,  because  the  failure  of 
others  had  ruined  him,  exposed  him  to  years 
of  persecution  and  constant  embarrassment. 

His  letters  to  his  wife  during  his  long  and 
often  unexpected  absences  from  home,  arising 
out  of  these  perplexing  arrests,  are  full  of 
cheerful  hope  and  piety. 


TRIALS  OF    AN  INVENTOR.  37 

His  earliest  experience  of  prison-life  was 
while  in  Philadelphia,  and  soon  after  the 
failure.  Although  but  one  of  the  junior  mem- 
bers, he  seems  to  have  assumed  all  the  in- 
debtedness of  the  firm,  and,  while  the  others 
were  quietly  at  work  in  the  country,  to  have 
suffered  in  his  own  person  the  unjustifiable 
prosecutions  that  were  visited  upon  the  unfor- 
tunate concern. 

His  daughter  remembers  awaking  one  morn- 
ing and  inquiring  for  her  father.  In  the  gen- 
tlest manner  possible,  her  mother  told  her  that 
her  father  was  in  jail  for  debt.  Leaving  her 
infant  with  this  daughter,  the  mother  went 
every  day  to  the  prison  to  bear  the  great  sup- 
port of  her  presence  and  sympathies  to  her 
husband. 

These  trials  prepared  him  for  others,  more 
severe,  which  were  before  him.  "  They  were 
not  wholly,"  he  says, "  without  their  advantage ; 
lessons  of  life  were  learned  from  them.  If 


38  TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

any  one  is  desirous  to  learn  more  of  human 
nature  than  he  can  learn  in  any  other  way, 
or  wishes  for  a  moment  to  look  upon  the 
darkest  side  of  life,  let  him,  for  such  a  cause 
as  debt  and  misfortune,  be  placed  within  the 
bars  of  a  prison  without  a  dollar  in  his  pocket, 
and,  in  conscious  innocence,  look  out  upon  the 
world,  and  reflect  upon  the  wide  contrast  in 
his  condition  with  that  of  those  who  are  enjoy- 
ing liberty  without ;  while  within  he  finds 
his  fellow-sufferers  all  upon  the  same  level, 
whether  incarcerated  for  the  sum  of  one  hund- 
red pence,  or  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds. 
Then,  notwithstanding  the  mortification  attend- 
ing such  a  trial,  if  he  has  (as  every  human 
being  should  have)  a  good  purpose  in  life  for 
which  to  live  and  hope  on,  he  may  add  firm- 
ness to  hope,  and  derive  lasting  advantage 
by  having  proved  to  himself  that,  with  a  clear 
conscience  and  a  high  purpose,  a  man  may  be 
as  happy  within  prison-walls  as  in  any  other 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  39 

(even  the  most  fortunate)  circumstances  in 
life." 

In  this  failure  of  his  business  prospects,  and 
of  his  hopes  of  realizing  a  competence  from 
his  agricultural  patents,  is  to  be  found  the 
cause  of  his  giving  attention  to  what  became 
the  great  work  of  his  life,  and  of  his  being  an 
instrument  in  God's  hand  of  opening  up  for 
the  benefit  of  the  world  one  of  those  great 
discoveries,  the  full  advantage  of  which,  as 
vast  as  it  now  appears,  probably  cannot  be 
adequately  estimated. 

If  there  is  a  providence  in  human  affairs, 
and  God  has  a  plan  for  man's  life,  who  can 
fail  to  see  how  wonderfully  Mr.  Goodyear  was 
led,  by  a  succession  of  singular  and  apparently 
baffling  events,  but  steadily  along  all  the  while, 
to  the  accomplishment  of  the  divine  purpose. 
This  certainly  was  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Good- 
year himself,  and  it  was  this  thought  that 
sustained  him  in  the  darkest  hours.  "  During 


40  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

these  years,"  (of  unprecedented  trial,)  he  says. 
"  my  anticipations  of  ultimate  success  never 
changed,  nor  were  my  hopes  for  a  moment 
depressed."  He  further  remarks :  "  Beyond 
this,  I  refer  the  whole  to  the  great  Creator, 
who  directs  the  operations  of  mind  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  properties  of  matter  in  his 
own  way,  at  the  time  when  they  are  specially 
needed,  influencing  some  mind  for  every  work 
or  calling." 

The  yielding  up  to  his  creditors  of  his  agri- 
cultural inventions  also  naturally  turned  his 
thoughts  in  another  direction,  and  prepared  the 
way  for  him  to  enter  upon  an  entirely  differ- 
ent line  of  experiments.  Besides,  the  loss  of 
credit  arising  out  of  his  failure,  and  his  con- 
tinued embarrassments  on  account  of  the 
burden  of  debt  that  constantly  threatened  him, 
prevented  him  from  forming  new  business 
engagements.  At  this  period,  he  says  it 
became  a  serious  question  what  he  could  do 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  41 

• 

with  any  prospect  of  success.  Foreseeing  that 
he  would  not  be  likely  to  shake  off  the  epithets 
of  "  inventor,"  "  mechanical  genius,"  or  "  vis- 
ionary," which  terms  are  generally  considered 
of  similar  meaning,  and  directly  opposed  to 
money  getting,  he  determined,  all  things  con- 
sidered, to  make  a  profession  of  invention.  So 
completely  was  he  hemmed  in  by  his  pecun- 
iary dimculties  that  he  could  not  hope  to 
recover  himself  by  any  ordinary  business ;  he 
therefore  sought  some  new  field  of  enterprise, 
suited  to  his  capacity  and  congenial  to  his 
tastes. 

He  did  not  even  remain  inactive  while  en- 
gaged in  the  perplexing  task  of  closing  up 
the  affairs  of  the  hardware  firm,  or  even 
while  passing  many  days  in  the  confinement 
of  the  jail.  "While  within  the  jail  limits  he 
perfected  an  invention,  from  the  sale  of  which 
he  derived  the  means  of  subsistence  for  himself 
and*  family. 


42  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOK. 

It  was  just  at  this  period,  about  the  year 
1831  or  1832,  that  the  manufacture  of  gum 
elastic,  commonly  called  India  rubber,  was 
commenced  in  the  United  States.  Mr,  Good- 
year read  with  interest  .all  that  appeared  in 
the  public  prints  in  reference  to  it,  and  exam- 
ined carefully  such  articles  as  were  made  of  it 
as  they  came  under  his  notice. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB.  45 


CHAPTEE  V. 

GUM  ELASTIC. 

BEFOEE  entering  upon  the  period  of  greatest 
interest  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  we  shall 
be  better  able  to  understand  the  nature  and 
importance  of  his  discoveries  by  noticing  a 
few  facts  connected  with  the  substance  upon 
which  his  experiments  were  performed.  It 
was  at  first  called  Indian  or  India  Kubber, 
because  prepared  by  the  South  American  In- 
dians, or  brought  from  the  East  and  West 
Indies,  and  received  the  title  of  Kubber 
from  the  fact  that  its  first  practical  use, 
suggested  by  a  Dr.  Priestly,  in  1770,  in  a 
work  upon  drawing,  was  for  the  removal  of  the 
marks  of  a  lead  pencil  from  paper.  Some 
French  scholars,  who  had  been  making  astro- 
nomical observations  in  South  America  in 


44  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

1730,  brought  back  with  them  the  first  speci- 
mens of  the  article  to  Europe. 

What  wonderful  contributions  to  the  wealth 
and  comfort  of  man  were  hidden  away  in  the 
new  world,  awaiting  discovery  by  Columbus! 
Here,  in  addition  to  the  exceedingly  rich  mines 
of  precious  metals,  which  seem  almost  to  be  in- 
exhaustible, were  found  the  potato,  Indian  corn, 
tobacco,  cotton,  immense  beds  of  coal,  and  last, 
but  not  least,  India  Rubber.  The  most  common 
name  of  this  substance,  describing  its  great 
peculiarity,  is  Gum  Elastic;  but  its  proper 
name  is  Caoutchouc,  pronounced  Koo-chook. 
A  substance  nearly  similar  is  found  in  the  East 
Indies,  and  bears  the  name  of  Gutta  Percha. 
There  is  an  almost  inexhaustible  supply  of  the 
different  varieties  of  the  tree  producing  this 
gum.  It  is  to  be  found  in  nearly  all  the  coun- 
tries lying  within  and  near  the  torrid  zone; 
but  the  great  market  of  the  world  for  this 
material  is  South  America. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  45 

At  a  very  early  day  the  Indians  of  Brazil 
became  acquainted  with  some  of  its  valu- 
able qualities,  and,  especially  in  the  province  of 
Para,  bordering  upon  the  River  Amazon,  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  manufacturing  bottles  of 
it.  It  was  in  the  form  of  bottles  that  it  was 
first  carried  to  Europe  and  imported  into  the 
United  States.  The  Portuguese  settlers  in 
South  America  were  the  first  who  turned  it  to 
other  uses,  converting  it  into  shoes,  boots,  hats, 
and  garments.  It  was  found  to  be  a  peculiarly 
valuable  defense,  being  water-proof,  in  a  coun- 
try so  much  exposed  to  deluging  rains  and 
overflows. 

The  tree  from  which  the  gum  exudes  grows 
to  the  height  of  eighty,  and  sometimes  one 
hundred  feet.*  It  generally  runs  up  straight, 
forty  or  fifty  feet,  without  a  branch.  Its  top  is 
spreading,  and  is  ornamented  with  a  thick  and 
glossy  foliage.  The  gum,  which  is  of  a  yellowish 

*  Kidder's  Brazil. 


46  TRIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOB. 

white  color,  and  like  thick  cream,  flows  out 
when  the  slightest  cnt  is  made  upon  the  tree. 
It  can  be  obtained  at  all  seasons,  but  is  con- 
sidered the  best  during  the  months  of  May, 
June,  July,  and  August.  A  camp  is  estab- 
lished where  the  trees  are  most  abundant, 
and  early  in  the  morning  as  many  trees  as 
can  be  attended  to  are  tapped  with  a  blow 
of  a  hatchet.  A  little  clay  cup  resembling  a 
swallow's  nest,  shaped  by  the  hands  of  the 
workmen,  is  placed  underneath  the  cut.  Each 
tree  will  have  five  or  six  taps.  About  a  gill  of 
fluid  is  collected  from  one  incision  in  the  course 
of  the  day.  When  collected  the  fluid  is  taken 
immediately  to  the  camp,  where  preparations 
have  already  been  made  for  its  use.  To  make 
shoes  or  bottles,  or  any  desired  article,  a  model 
is  shaped  out  from  wood  or  clay,  and  is  held  by 
a  long  handle.  In  the  manufacture  of  shoes 
they  have  a  wooden  last,  which  is  smeared 
with  clay,  to  prevent  the  adhesion  of  the  gum. 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  47 

The  creamy  liquid  is  then  poured  over  the 
last  or  model,  a  thin  coating  adhering  to  the 
clay,  very  much  as  farmers'  wives  used  to  make 
tallow  candles.  It  is  then  held  over  a  smoking 
fire,  which  gives  it  the  dark  color  which  it 
usually  bears,  and  at  the  same  time  dries  the 
gum.  When  one  coating  is  sufficiently  hard- 
ened, another  is  added  and  smoked  in  its  turn. 
In  this  way  any  desirable  thickness  can  be 
secured.  When  completed  the  work  is  exposed 
for  some  days  to  the  sun,  and  remains  soft 
enough  to  receive  impressions  upon  the  out- 
side. During  this  time  the  shoes  are  figured, 
according  to  the  fancy  of  the  workman,  by  the 
use  of  a  pointed  iron  or  stick.  The  clay  forms 
are  then  broken  out,  and  the  shoes  are  hung 
up  to  dry.  When  ready  for  market  they  are 
stuffed  with  dry  grass  to  keep  them  in  form, 
and  shipped  to  European  or  American  ports. 
From  Para  alone  there  were  exported,  before 
the  great  improvement  in  the  curing  of  gum 


48  TEIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOK. 

elastic,  three  hundred  thousand  pairs  of  shoes. 
Great  quantities  of  the  gum  in  the  form  of  bot- 
tles and  toys  were  also  exported. 

It  was  in  1820  that  a  pair  of  these  rubber 
shoes  was  seen  for  the  first  time  in  the  United 
States.  They  were  brought  by  a  ship  into 
Boston,  and  handed  about  as  a  curiosity.* 
They  were  covered  with  gilding,  and  very 
much  resembled  the  shoe  of  a  Chinaman. 
Soon  after  a  ship  from  South  America  brought 
to  the  same  city  five  hundred  pairs  of  shoes, 
thick,  heavy,  and  ill-shaped.  The  valuable  serv- 
ice which  they  rendered,  in  defending  the  feet 
from  dampness,  made  them  desirable,  however 
awkward  their  appearance,  and  they  were  im- 
mediately sold.  The  business  rapidly  increased, 
until  half  a  million  pairs  were  annually  im- 
ported. The  great  price  at  which  they  at  first 
sold  excited  inquiry  as  to  their  production,  and 
Yankee  skill  soon  discovered  that  the  shoes 

*  Parton,  in  the  North  American. 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  49 

could  be  made  as  well,  out  of  the  raw  material, 
in  New  England  as  in  Brazil,  and  at  a  very 
great  profit.  Immense  quantities  of  the  un- 
manufactured gum  had  been  brought  as  ballast 
or  freight  from  Brazil.  This  could  be  bought 
at  a  very  small  price.  In  this  way  the  vast 
India  Rubber  business  was  commenced  in  this 
country,  and  at  first  paid  to  those  that  entered 
upon  it  a  great  profit. 

About  the  same  time,  in  France,  threads 
were  cut  by  machinery  from  the  gum  bottles, 
and  were  inserted  into  narrow  webs  of  cloth 
for  the  manufacture  of  suspenders,  guard  chains, 
and  garters ;  and  in  England  a  thin  coating  of 
liquid  gum  was  spread  between  two  thicknesses 
of  thin  cloth.  This  formed  the  famous  water- 
proof Macintosh  overcoats,  which  long  enjoyed 
a  large  sale. 

In  the  city  of  Roxbury,  in  Massachusetts, 
there  was  a  large  establishment  for  the  man- 
ufacture of  patent  leather.  The  foreman  of 
4 


50  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

the  shop,  Mr.  Chaffee,  in  1830,  becoming  inter- 
ested in  the  improvements  that  were  being 
made  in  the  manufacture  of  rubber  goods,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  dissolving  the  rubber  and 
spreading  it  upon  cloth,  and  thus  manufactur- 
ing a  patent  leather  which  should  have  the 
additional  advantage  of  being  water  proof.  He 
found  that  the  spirits  of  turpentine  would  dis- 
solve the  gum,  and  that  lampblack  would  give 
it  the  right,  color.  He  also  invented  a  machine 
for  spreading  it  upon  cloth ;  and,  having  made 
and  dried  specimens  of  the  article,  he  and  his 
friends  supposed  that  he  had  secured  an  invention 
of  incalculable  value.  Immediately,  a  large  cap- 
ital was  invested  in  the  manufacture  of  this  cloth, 
and  the  Roxbury  goods  became  popular  all 
over  the  country.  Handsomely  formed  shoes, 
boots,  clothing,  and  a  great  variety  of  goods  in 
immense  quantities,  were  manufactured.  New 
companies  were  started  in  Eastern  Massachu- 
setts and  in  different  parts  of  the  country. 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  51 

Several  millions  of  dollars  were  thus  invested 
in  buildings,  machinery,  and  stock.  Large 
stores  for  the  goods  were  opened  in  the  prin- 
cipal cities,  and  much  attention  was  given  to 
the  new  material  through  the  public  prints. 
These  accounts  met  the  eye  and  awakened 
the  inquiring  curiosity  of  Mr.  Goodyear. 


52  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTER  VL 

OCCASION  OF  HIS  EXPERIMENTS  IN  GUM  ELASTIC. 

WHILE  his  mind  was  aroused  by  the  accounts 
of  the  various  uses  to  which  the  new. substance 
was  applied,  Mr.  Goodyear,  in  visiting  the  city 
of  New  York,  happened  to  pass  the  store  of  the 
Roxbury  India  Rubber  Company.  He  stopped 
to  make  inquiries  in  reference  to  life  preservers, 
with  the  view  of  purchasing  one  for  himself. 
On  examining  one  of  them,  it  occurred  to  him 
that  he  could  improve  the  construction  of  the 
tube  by  which  it  was  inflated.  Some  months 
after  this,  returning  to  the  city,  he  exhibited 
to  the  agent  of  the  company  his  improved  tube, 
with  the  purpose  of  disposing  of  it  to  them. 
Struck  with  the  skill  displayed  in  overcoming 
the  difficulties  perceived  in  the  tube,  the  agent 
entered  upon  a  confidential  talk  with  Mr. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  53 

Goodyear  in  reference  to  the  serious  troubles 
which  were  then  disclosing  themselves  in  the 
India  Rubber  business.  He  assured  him  that 
the  whole  business  was  on  the  eve  of  ruin,  and 
that  a  very  large  compensation  would  be  given 
to  any  one  who  would  devise  a  way  to  over- 
come the  difficulties  they  had  met  in  the 
manufacture  and  preservation  of  their  goods. 
The  Eoxbury  Company  had  manufactured  a 
large  quantity  of  shoes  and  other  goods  in  the 
fall  and  winter  of  1833  and  1834,  and  had  sold 
them  at  good  prices;  but  in  the  succeeding 
summer  the  greater  part  had  melted,  and 
twenty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  goods  had 
been  returned  to  them  decomposed,  and  emit- 
ting so  offensive  an  odor  as  to  render  it  neces- 
sary to  have  them  buried  in  the  earth.*  Other 
companies  were  in  the  same  condition.  What 
rendered  the  matter  more  serious,  was  the  fact 
that  it  required  the  test  of  a  year  or  more — 

*Parton. 


54  TRIALS  OF  AN  LNTENTOR. 

the  return  of  warm  and  cold  weather — before 
they  could  know  whether  their  goods  would 
escape  decomposition.  ^These  companies  strug- 
gled on  awhile  against  these  appalling  diffi- 
culties, but  finally  gave  over  the  hopeless  work, 
having  fallen  into  irretrievable  ruin.  People 
became  disgusted  with  an  article  that  melted 
in  the  summer  and  stiffened  to  a  stone  in  the 
winter,  and  would  not  purchase  the  goods.  In 
the  great  speech  which  Daniel  Webster  made 
in  the  defense  of  Mr.  Goodyear's  title  to  the 
invention  of  the  only  process  by  which  gum 
elastic  has  been  made  a  manageable  and  most 
serviceable  material,  he  sets  forth  quite  humor- 
ously one  of  the  difficulties  connected  with  the 
use  of  uncured  India  rubber.  "  I  well  remem- 
ber," he  says,  "  that  I  had  some  experience  in 
this  matter  myself.  A  friend  in  New  York 
sent  me  a  very  fine  cloak  of  India  rubber,  and 
a  hat  of  the  same  material.  I  did  not  succeed 
very  well  with  them.  I  took  the  cloak  one 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  55 

day  and  set  it  out  in  the  cold.  It  stood  very 
well  by  itself.  I  surmounted  it  with  the  hat, 
and  many  persons  passing  by  supposed  they 
saw  standing  by  the  porch  the  Farmer  of 
Marshfield."  But  the  worse  evil  was  the  rot- 
ting, and  the  melting  in  the  heat  of  summer. 
The  heat  of  the  body  would  melt  or  decom- 
pose the  threads  of  rubber  in  suspenders,  and 
those  that  wore  the  Macintosh  overcoats  were 
obliged  to  kqep  them  away  from  the  fire. 
Those  that  had  been  interested  in  the  great 
New  England  manufactories  had  been,  many 
of  them,  ruined  by  their  losses,  and  the  feeling 
of  the  community  had  turned  very  strongly 
against  the  whole  thing.  The  only  reli- 
able articles  were  the  old-fashioned  Indian 
made  rubber-shoes  from  the  valley  of  the 
Amazon. 

It  was  in  such  a  discouraging  hour  as  this 
that  Charles  Goodyear  felt  himself  called  upon, 
as  by  a  voice  from  heaven,  to  enter  upon  the 


56  TRIALS  OF  AN   INVENTOR. 

work  of  redeeming  this  unfortunate  but  invalu- 
able substance  from  the  contempt  into  which 
it  had  fallen,  and  of  developing  in  it  those 
qualities  that  should  make  it,  what  it  has  be- 
come, one  of  the  greatest  temporal  blessings  to 
the  race.  Up  to  this  period  Mr.  Goodyear  had 
known  nothing  of  these  difficulties ;  but  he  soon 
learned  that  this  substance  "  had  baffled  all  the 
efforts  of  chemists  and  manufacturers  to  divest 
it  of  these  objectionable  qualities.  He  not 
unfrequently  met  with  physicians  and  others, 
who  had  made  a  long  course  of  experiments 
for  this  purpose,  but  who  had  only  met  with 
disappointment."  The  attention  of  medical 
gentlemen  had  been  particularly  drawn  to  the 
subject  from  the  fact  that  it  promised,  if  these 
peculiarities  could  be  obviated,  to  be  of  great 
service  to  the  profession.  This  opinion  has 
been  fully  justified  by  the  result.  Both  the 
profession  and  their  patients  owe  a  large  debt 
of  obligation  to  Mr.  Goodyear  for  that  life  of 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.       ,  57 

toil  and  suffering  by  which  his  invaluable  dis- 
covery was  secured. 

In  all  these  disheartening  difficulties,  meeting 
him  at  the  very  commencement  of  his  under- 
taking, himself  a  bankrupt,  and  constantly 
exposed  to  arrest  for  debt,  suffering  always 
from  a  chronic  disease,  a  little  family  depend- 
ent upon  him,  his  friends  without  confidence 
in  the  probable  success  or  importance  of  his 
proposed  study,  he  was  encouraged  and  sus- 
tained in  his  efforts  by  the  "reflection,  that 
that  which  is  hidden  and  unknown,  and  cannot 
be  discovered  by  scientific  research,  will  most 
likely  be  discovered  by  accident  if  at  all,  and 
by  the  man  who  applies  himself  most  perse  - 
veringly  to  the  subject,  and  is  most  observing 
of  everything  relating  thereto."  "This,"  he 
very  properly  adds,  "  is  corroborated  and  illus- 
trated by  the  circumstances  attending  this  dis- 
covery." It  was  known  that  rubber  would 
soften  in  the  sun's  rays  at  one  hundred  degrees 


58  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

Fahrenheit,  and  could  be  melted  at  a  heat  of 
two  hundred  degrees.  "No-  one,"  he  adds, 
"who  had  any  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  the  gum  would  be  likely  to  apply  a  high 
degree  of  heat  to  it,  from  design,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  divesting  it  of  adhesiveness,  when  it 
was  known  that  it  would  melt  at  a  low  temper- 
ature." And  yet  the  grand  discovery,  which 
was  one  of  those  marvelous  accidents  that  seem 
to  deserve  rather  to  be  called  a  divine  provi- 
dence, revealed  the  fact  that  a  very  high  degree 
of  heat,  (which  is  so  destructive  to  the  native 
gum,)  in  connection  with  the  use  of  sulphur, 
the  necessity  of  which  was  as  accidentally  re- 
vealed, is  the  very  thing  that  places  this  re- 
markable agent  beyond  all  the  liabilities  that 
render  it  so  difficult  to  manage.  It  becomes, 
by  this  singular  process,  pliable  and  indestruct- 
ible in  all  weathers  and  under  almost  all  cir- 
cumstances. It  certainly  is  not  a  matter  of 
wonder,  in  view  of  all  these  peculiar  circum- 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  59 

stances,  that  Mr.  Goodyear  felt,  as  he  looked 
back  upon  his  lifer  that  he  had  been  led  by  a 
divine  hand,  or  difficult  to  believe,  in  the  extraor- 
dinary courage  and  constancy  that  he  manifested 
through  so  many  trying  years,  that  he  was  in- 
spired by  a  higher  Presence,  and  felt  that  he 
was  commissioned  for  an  important  service  in 
behalf  of  his  fellow-men. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  suggested  above  by 
Mr.  Goodyear,  and  noticed  by  Mr.  Parton  in 
his  sketch  of  Mr.  Goodyear's  life  in  the  North 
American  Keview,  that  many  of  the  most 
valuable  inventions  now  in  use  were  discovered 
not  by  scientific  men,  but  by  practical,  and  often 
humble  minds  engaged  in  constant  and  often 
daring  experiments.  It  had  been  known  for  a 
long  time,  to  physicians  and  chemists,  that  cer- 
tain gases  produced  a  singular  effect  upon  the 
nervous  system,  and  that,  when  breathed  into 
the  system,  a  person  becomes  highly  excited  and 
unconscious  of  his  acts ;  but  it  was  left  to  a 


60  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

young  dentist,  (Wells,  of  Hartford,)  who  had 
not  enjoyed  a  scientific  training,  but  was  ob- 
servant in  his  habits,  and  felt  the  value  in  his 
profession  of  some  process  for  relieving  the 
nervous  terror  of  his  patients  under  the  oper- 
ation of  the  forceps,  to  notice,  when  a  young 
man  had  recovered  from  the  effects  of  exhila- 
rating gas,  that  he  was  not  conscious  when  he 
received  the  wounds  and  bruises  caused  by  the 
struggles  and  violent  exercises  which  he  had 
passed  through  while  under  its  influence.  At 
once  the  great  truth  flashed  upon  him,  that  by 
breathing  gases  of  this  character  insensibility 
to  pain  could  be  produced  long  enough  to  admit 
of  surgical  operations.  He  took  the  great 
responsibility  of  trying  the  first  experiments, 
and  soon  the  additional  steps  in  this  marvelous 
discovery  were  made — the  choice  of  the  safest 
articles  for  inhalation;  and  thus  was  intro- 
duced the  greatest  advance  ever  taken  at  one 
time  in  the  healing  art.  Mr.  Parton  refers  to 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  61 

the  invention  of  the  steam-engine,  and  says  of 
James  Watt,  "  that  while  he  modestly  ascribes 
to  Professor  Black  (of  Glasgow)  part  of  the 
glory  of  his  improvements  in  the  steam-engine, 
it  seems  plain  from  his  own  narrative  that  he 
made  the  great  invention  of  the  condenser 
without  any  assistance.  It  was  simply  a  flash 
of  genius  that  made  it  what  we  now  see  it,  and 
was  wholly  his  own.  Science  could  give  him 
the  occasion  of  the  defects  of  the  old  engine, 
but  no  hints  as  to  the  remedy.  It  was  James 
"Watt,  mathematical  instrument  maker,  earning 
fourteen  shillings  a  week,  who  brooded  over  his 
little  model  until  his  conceptiou  of  the  con- 
denser burst  upon  him  as  he  was  taking  a  stroll 
across  Glasgow  Green." 

European  chemists  had  thoroughly  analyzed 
the  gum,  and  developed  its  natural  qualities. 
Ure,  in  his  valuable  Dictionary,  had  collected 
and  presented  the  scientific  facts  which  careful 
investigation  had  suggested,  but  no  one  of  all 


62  TRIALS  OF  AN"  INVENTOR. 

the  learned  chemists  had  intimated  even 
the  direction  in  which  the  solution  of  the 
great  difficulty  attending  its  practical  use  was 
to  be  discovered.  Mr.  Goodyear  had  an  un- 
known sea  to  traverse,  without  chart  or  com- 
pass to  direct  him  in  his  course. 


TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR.  63 


CHAPTEK  YII. 

THE  FIRST  EXPERIMENTS. 

IT  was  significant  both  of  the  fortune  and 
of  the  character  of  the  man,  that  his  first 
experiment  was  made  in  prison.  He  waB 
arrested  upon  a  suit  growing  out  of  his  Phila- 
delphia failure,  soon  after  he  returned  from 
New  York,  (as  he  was  often  afterward  during 
this  memorable  period  of  ten  years,)  and  com- 
pelled to  reside  within  jail  limits.  He  did 
not  allow  this,  however,  which  would  have 
been  enough  to  discourage  an  ordinary  man, 
to  hinder  him  in  his  new  undertaking,  but 
entered  at  once  upon  his  experiments.  It 
was  a  happy  circumstance  for  him  that  the 
material  upon  which  he  was  now  to  operate 
was  not  expensive.  "Fortunately,"  he  says 
"  the  substance  is  one  with  which,  in  experi- 


64:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

menting,  fingers  are  better  than  any  other 
mechanical  power  of  the  same  force ;  and 
these  formed  the  only  mechanical  power  of 
which  I  had  command  during  the  first  two 
years  of  my  experiments,  and  that  by  which  I 
mixed  and  worked  many  hundred  pounds  of 
gum,  afterward  spreading  it  upon  a  marble 
slab  with  a  rolling  pin.  Thus,  owing  very 
much  to  the  plastic  nature  of  the  substance, 
in  extreme  poverty,  I  was  able  to  persevere 
in  my  course  against  all  obstacles."  . 

Among  many  experiments  undertaken  at 
this  time  for  drying  and  curing  the  gum,  he 
was  much  elated  with  the  success  of  one  which 
seemed  every  way  satisfactory  at  the  time. 
By  mixing  half  a  pound  of  magnesia  with  a 
pound  of  the  gum,  he  secured  a  compound  of 
a  white  color  which  was  very  desirable  for  many 
purposes,  as  only  black  goods  had  heretofore 
been  in  the  market.  The  surface  seemed  to 
dry  thoroughly,  and  the  unpleasant  stickiness 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  65 

of  the  gum,  under  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
appeared  to  be  overcome.  The  expectation 
proved,  however,  after  a  period,  to  be  un- 
founded; for,  ultimately,  the  compound  soft- 
ened and  fermented.  But  at  the  time  it  was 
supposed  by  himself  and  his  friends  that  his 
success  warranted  him  in  the  attempt  to  enter 
upon  the  manufacture  of  the  goods. 

It  was  necessary  that  he  should  have  a 
home  for  his  little  family,  and  in  this  hour  of 
need  a  gentleman  of  New  Haven,*  whose  kind- 
liess  he  was  in  after  years  permitted  fully  to 
return,  offered  him  valuable  assistance.  He 
took  a  cottage  in  New  Haven,  and  once  more 
collected  his  family  around  him. 

The  daughter,  whose  recollections  cover  the 
whole  of  the  most  eventful  period  of  her 
father's  life,  recalls  very  vividly  their  mother's 
pleasure  when  permitted  once  more  to  gather 
her  little  family  together  around  her  own  table. 

*  Ralph  B.  Steel,  Esq. 


66  TEIALS  OF  AN  rNTENTOB. 

He  recommenced,  upon  a  small  scale,  his 
work  upon  the  peculiar  material  which  was 
not  again  to  leave  his  hands  unemployed 
until  his  earthly  labor  was  finished.  His  first 
manufactured  goods  offered  to  the  trade  were 
rubber  shoes,  as  these  required  the  least  skill 
in  their  construction  and  found  the  readiest 
sale. 

This  was  the  beginning,  also,  of  the  family 
employment  in  the  manufacture  of  rubber 
articles ;  father,  mother,  and  children,  as  their 
age  permitted,  from  this  time,  through  years 
of  protracted  experiments  and  of  remarkable 
endurance  and  sufferings,  engaged  in  common 
labors.  His  oldest  daughter  recollects,  with 
feelings  of  proper  pride,  that  in  after  days 
she  made,  herself,  the  first  pair  of  vulcanized 
rubber  shoes  ever  constructed.  Three  or  four 
young  momen  were  employed,  and  boarded  in 
the  family. 

"  It  was    at  this  time,"  says  his   daughter, 


TRIALS  OF  AN   INVENTOR.  67 

"that  I  remember  beginning  to  see  and  hear 
about  India  rubber.  It  began  to  appear  in  lit- 
tle patches  upon  the  window  panes  and  on  the 
dinner  plates.  These  patches  were  peeled  off 
when  dry.  Pieces  of  printed  muslin  were  cov- 
ered with  transparent  gum.  The  first  article 
made,  which  I  recollect,  was  a  purse,  finished 
'with  a  steel  clasp,  which  I  took  with  me  to 
school ;  and  the  intelligent  appreciation  of  my 
father's  experiment,  by  the  teacher  at  this  time, 
upon  its  being  shown  to  him,  is  gratefully 
remembered.  Father  took  possession  of  our 
kitchen  for  a  work-shop.  He  would  sit  hour 
after  hour,  working  the  gum  with  his  hands." 

Mr.  Goodyear  could  not  confine  himself  to 
manufacturing.  This  was  entered  upon  sim- 
ply to  secure  his  daily  bread.  His  appropriate 
work  was  inventing,  and  to  this  he  went  at 
once,  before  the  success  or  failure  of  his  manu- 
factured goods  was  demonstrated.  Assisted 
by  two  workmen,  he  began  his  experiments  in 


68  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

life-boats.  He  constructed  several  of  these, 
made  light  and  buoyant  by  tubes  of  tin,  in 
one  of  which  his  daughter  remembers  to  have 
been  taken  to  sail.  With  his  life  only,  he 
closed  his  studies  in  this  direction.  As  we 
shall  see,  he  constantly  recurs  to  this  line  ot 
experiments,  seeking  by  a  great  variety  of 
inventions  to  secure  facilities  for  rescuing 
lives  exposed  to  the  perils  of  the  sea. 

In  his  India-rubber  work  he,  at  this  time, 
dissolved  the  gum  in  spirits  of  turpentine, 
and  colored  it*  with  lampblack ;  magnesia 
was  added  to  harden  it.  It  was  spread 
upon  flannel,  and  out  of  this  substance  the 
shoes  were  made.  They  were  handsomely 
embossed,  and  were  at  the  time,  and  would  be 
now,  considered  beautiful.  But  after  a  season 
of  trial  the  gum  softened,  as  in  previous  ex- 
periments, and  the  beautiful  overshoes  proved 
to  be  a  failure.  This  was  in  the  winter  of 
1835  and  1836. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  69 

Mr.  Goodyear  now  thought  that  the  great 
difficulty  was  in  the  spirits  of  turpentine  by 
which  the  gum  was  dissolved,  and  he  consid- 
ered himself  very  fortunate  at  this  time  in 
finding  in  the  market  forty  or  fifty  barrels  of 
India-rubber  sap,  among  which  were  a  number 
of  casks  in  which  the  gum  had  not  thickened. 
It  was  said  to  have  been  kept  in  that  state 
by  mixing  a  small  quantity  of  alcohol  with  it 
when  it  was  first  barreled.  With  this  Mr. 
Goodyear  hoped  to  succeed  in  drying  the 
gum,  so  that  it  would  not  decompose  and  be- 
come worthless,  as  in  previous  experiments. 

The  Irishman  that  he  had  taken  into  his 
service  understood  the  previous  difficulty,  and 
learned  the  expectation  of  his  employer  in 
reference  to  the  new  material.  He  thought  he 
would  anticipate  him  in  the  experiment.  On 
the  arrival  of  the  liquid  gum,  Jerry,  at  night, 
opened  one  of  the  barrels,  and  on  meeting  his 
employer  at  the  shop  in  the  morning,  intimated 


70  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

to  him  that  he  had  stolen  the  honor  of  the  first 
experiment,  and  that  a  Yankee  was  not  so  good 
at  invention  as  an  Irishman;  at  the  same  time 
he  pointed  to  the  trowsers  he  had  on,  which  he 
had  dipped  in  the  barrel  of  sap.  The  work 
seemed  to  be  so  completely  and  satisfactorily 
performed  that  at  first  it  looked  as  if  the 
problem  were  solved,  and  the  long-desired  im- 
provement in  gum  elastic  secured.  Soon  after, 
Jerry  sat  down  to  his  work  of  mixing  gum 
before  the  fire,  and,  on  attempting  to  rise  again 
in  a  few  moments,  found  himself  fastened  to 
the  seat  with  his  legs  stuck  together.  On  being 
drawn  from  his  novel  trowsers,  by  the  assistance 
of  others,  and  to  their  no  small  amusement,  he 
expressed  himself  satisfied  with  his  experience 
as  an  inventor. 

This  experiment  showed  clearly  that  the 
stickiness  belonged  to  the  gum  itself,  and  was 
not  a  consequence  of  its  manufacture. 

The  failure  of  these  early  experiments  was 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  71 

very  disheartening ;  the  most  painful  feature  of 
the  whole,  however,  was  the  effect  of  these  disap- 
pointments upon  his  friends.  He  had  previous- 
ly given  them  sanguine  assurances  of  his  suc- 
cess. "  They  now  became,"  he  says,  "  entirely 
discouraged,  and  declined  rendering  him  fur- 
ther assistance  for  such  purposes,  and  those 
who  had  afforded  his  family  supplies  signified 
that  they  could  do  so  no  longer.  At  this  period 
he  was  unable  to  meet  his  current  expenses; 
he  therefore  sold,  for  the  payment  of  those  who 
had  afforded  him  assistance,  the  little  furniture 
he  possessed." 

He  now  found  a  boarding  place  for  his  family 
in  a  retired  part  of  the  country,  and  left,  as 
security  for  the  unpaid  rent  of  the  cottage  he 
had  occupied,  the  linen  which  had  been  spun 
by  his  wife.  During  his  absence  from  home 
this  was  sold  at  auction  for  the  payment  of  the 
debt,  causing  the  family  keen  regret,  not  so 
much  on  account  of  its  intrinsic  value,  as  the 


72  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

loss  of  a  memento  of  days  now  forever  departed, 
when  the  daughters  of  I^ew  England  spun  their 
own  linen,  and  fathers  and  brothers  were 
clothed  in  the  manufactures  of  their  own 
household.  Trying  family  afflictions  added  to 
the  heavy  burdens  that  now  weighed  upon  the 
heart  of  Mr.  Goodyear.  He  lost  a  little  son  at 
this  time,  and  another  was  brought  down  to 
the  verge  of  the  grave. 

This  discipline  he  bore  submissively.  He 
had  implicit  confidence  in  the  wisdom  and 
goodness  of  God,  and  calmly  received,  as  from 
the  hand  of  a  Father,  whatever  providence  it 
pleased  him  to  send.  In  all  the  anxiety  and 
disappointment  attending  his  life  during  this 
period  of  peculiar  trial,  his  faith  never  wavered 
in  the  conviction  that  God  was  leading  him 
to  certain  results.  His  family  devotions  were 
regularly  observed,  and  his  piety  was  unblem- 
ished by  any  relaxation  of  his  high  standard 
of  Christian  duty. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  73 

After  securing  this  new  home  for  his  family 
he  left  for  New  York,  to  commence  afresh  and 
alone  his  experiments  upon  rubber. 

On  arriving  at  the  city  a  friend  kindly  fur- 
nished him  with  a  room  where  he  could  con- 
tinue his  experiments,  and  a  druggist,  with 
whom  he  was  acquainted,  supplied  him 
with  the  drugs  required  in  his  work.  Here, 
as  hopeful  as  ever,  he  began  his  labors  again. 
Mr.  William  De  Forest,  his  former  tutor  and 
brother-in-law,  who  had  not  seen  him  for  a 
long  period,  met  him  one  day  in  Gold-street. 
He  was  surprised  at  his  appearance.  He 
looked  worn,  his  apparel  was  rusty,  and  he 
bore  the  unmistakable  marks  of  poverty.  His 
hands  were  covered  with  gum  elastic.  He  said 
playfully  that  "  he  did  not  know  how  to  rub 
India  rubber  off,"  and  added  that  "  there  was 
only  one  way,  by  rubbing  more  on."  He  in- 
vited Mr.  De  Forest  to  his  room.  It  was  up 
three  flights  of  stairs :  a  little  room  filled  up 


74  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

with  kettles,  white  lead,  gum  shellac,  and  gum 
elastic. 

"  William,"  said  the  man  with  the  seedy  coat 
and  the  besmeared  hands,  "here  is  something 
that  will  pay  all  my  debts  and  make  us  com- 
fortable." The  scene  was  doleful  enough  to 
the  brother-in  -law.  "  The  India  rubber  busi- 
ness," said  Mr.  De  Forest,  "  is  below  par ; "  "  and 
I  am  the  man  to  bring  it  back  again,"  was  the 
confident  answer,  as  he  pulled  from  his  pocket 
a  piece  of  white  rubber. 

Being  led  to  suppose  that  the  decomposition 
of  the  gum,  from  which  he  had  suffered  in  his 
experiments  in  New  Haven,  was  caused  by  the 
use  of  turpentine,  he  thought  he  had  discovered 
a  remedy  by  boiling  the  articles,  compounded 
with  magnesia,  in  quick  lime  and  water.  His 
hopes  were  greatly  raised  by  his  apparent  suc- 
cess. The  adhesive  quality  of  the  gum  seemed 
to  be  destroyed.  He  manufactured  some  very 
beautiful  fancy  articles.  The  improvement 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  75 

was  supposed  to  be  complete,  the  surface  of  the 
articles  was  quite  dry,  having  much  the  same 
appearance  as  the  present  vulcanized  rubber. 
He  manufactured,  for  the  first  time,  thin  sheets 
of  the  gum.  Heretofore  it  had  always  been 
spread  upon  cloth.  Nothing  could  exceed  the 
smoothness  and  firmness  of  these  transparent 
and  elastic  sheets.  Children's  toys  beautifully 
embossed,  globes,  and  a  great  variety  of  useful 
and  ornamental  articles,  were-  manufactured  of 
this  compound.  He  was  so  intent  upon  his 
work  that  he  had  articles  of  clothing  made  of 
the  gum,  and  exposed  them  to  the  severe  test  of 
daily  wearing.  A  gentleman  in  the  city  being 
inquired  of,  how  he  might  recognize  Mr.  Good- 
year, was  answered,  "  If  you  meet  a  man  who 
has  on  an  India  rubber  cap,  stock,  coat,  vest, 
and  shoes,  with  an  India  rubber  money  purse 
without  a  cent  of  money  in  it^  that  is  he."  For 
this  improvement  he  obtained  a  patent.  It 
excited  much  favorable  remark  in  the  public 


76  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

prints ;  and  for  the  goods  which  he  offered  as 
specimens,  he  obtained  medals  at  the  fairs  of 
the  Mechanics'  and  American  Institutes  in  the 
autumn  of  1835. 

While  securing  these  flattering  notices,  the 
inventor  observed  with  pain  that  a  drop  of 
weak  acid  falling  upon  his  goods  neutralized 
the  lime,  and  made  the  beautiful  surface  as 
sticky  as  ever.  Without  depressing  him,  this 
discovery  only  inspired  him  with  fresh  courage 
to  enter  upon  his  experiments  again. 

His  eldest  daughter  now  joined  him  as  a 
companion  in  New  York.  They  took  attic 
bedrooms  in  a  small  hotel.  He  obtained  ac- 
cess to  the  mill  of  a  Mr.  Pike  in  that  part  of 
New  York  then  called  Greenwich  Tillage. 
Here  he  prosecuted  his  experiments,  often  pre- 
paring his  gallon  jug  at  his  room  in  Gold- 
street,  and  carrying  it  upon  his  shoulder,  on 
foot,  to  the  mill,  a  distance  of  three  miles. 

His  next  improvement  was  more  substantial, 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOE.  77 

and  afforded  him  considerable  aid  by  the  sales 
he  was  able  to  make.  While  preparing  mate- 
rial for  ornamenting  some  gum  elastic  drapery, 
which  was  made  by  boiling  lime  with  bronze, 
the  mixture  not  producing  the  desired  effect, 
he  applied  nitric  acid,  for  the  purpose  of  eating 
out  the  bronze.  This  discolored  the  specimen 
and  he  threw  it  aside.  Some  days  afterward, 
thinking  of  the  circumstance,  it  occurred  to 
him  that  he  had  not  sufficiently  examined  the 
unusual  appearance  of  the  article.  He  found 
that  a  remarkable  change  appeared  to  have 
been  made  in  the  India  rubber.  The  surface 
of  it  had  indeed  been  cured,  as  he  called  it,  or 
experienced  the  same  change  that  he  after- 
ward secured,  by  his  final  experiments,  in  the 
whole  substance  of  the  rubber.  '  The  cloth 
which  he  now  prepared  by  this  new  process 
was  far  superior  to  anything  previously  made, 
and  bore  a  degree  of  heat  that  rendered  it  use- 
ful for  many  valuable  purposes.  In  a  few 


78  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

months  he  was  able  to  manufacture  as  elegant 
specimens  of  rubber  goods  and  toys  as  have 
ever  been  made  since. 

When  he  had  satisfied  himself  that  he  had 
'met  with  positive  success  in  his  experiment,  he 
came  to  his  rooms,  and  meeting  his  daughter 
in  the  attic  hall,  asked  her  if  she  could  keep  a 
secret — a  singular  question  to  ask  a  young 
lady.  Upon  her  affirmative  assurance,  he 
told  her  he  had  made  the  great  discovery,  how 
to  cure  India  rubber,  and  had  succeeded  in 
destroying  its  adhesiveness. 

A  patent  was  taken  out  for  this.  Consider- 
able attention  was  attracted  toward  it.  Emi- 
nent chemists  published  certificates  confirming 
his  pretensions,  and  public  institutions  sent  him 
their  medals.  He  visited  Washington,  and 
exhibited  his  specimens  to  President  Jackson, 
who  in  his  own  characteristic  handwriting  and 
style  wrote  him  this  note,  the  original  of 
which  is  before  the  author  as  he  copies: 


TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR.  79 

"WASHINGTON,  Uh  March,  1837. 
"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  received,  through  Gen- 
eral Upton  of  the  Senate,  your  note  conveying 
a  print  on  gum  elastic,  and  specimens  of  the 
pure  gum  designed  for  bandages  for  wounds 
and  other  useful  purposes.  I  thank  you  for 
these  samples  of  your  skill  in  the  new  art  in 
which  you  are  engaged,  and  which  I  have  no 
doubt  will  be  found  useful  in  a  great  variety  of 
ways.  I  can  only  wish  you  success  in  the 
prosecution  of  your  useful  labors,  and  assure 
you  that  the  sentiments  of  kindness  which  you 
express  are  cordially  received  and  reciprocated 
by  your  humble  servant, 

"ANDREW  JACKSON." 

"Mr.  CHARLES  GOODYEAR." 

Henry  Clay  wrote  the  following  letter,  which 
was  signed  by  himself  and  J.  C.  Calhoun: 

"WASHINGTON,  8th  March,  1837. 

"DEAR  SIR:  We  have  received  and  return 
you  many  thanks  for  the   prints  upon   gum 


80  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

elastic  parchment,  and  your  card  upon  a  speci- 
men of  pure  gum  without  cloth,  which  you 
have  done  us  the  favor  to  send  us.  From  the 
limited  opportunity  which  we  have  had  of 
examining  this  new  use  of  a  material  which 
has  suddenly  risen  into  great  importance,  it 
seems  to  be  admirably  adapted  to  the  purposes 
to  which  you  have  applied  it.  The  public 
is  much  indebted  to  you  for  the  advantages 
which  it  will  derive  from  this  exercise  of  your 
ingenuity. 

"We  have  doubted  the  propriety  of  Con- 
gress, or  either  branch  of  it,  becoming  the 
recipients  of  individual  gratuities,  such  as 
you  propose  to  offer  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
Senate.  .  But  if  you  think  proper  to  tender 
it,  perhaps  it  will  be  best  to  address  it  to 
the  presiding  officer,  who  will  lay  it  before 
the  Senate. 

"We  are,  sir,  gratefully  and  respectfully, 
your  obedient  servants,  etc." 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  81 

He  had  maps  beautifully  printed  upon  sheets 
of  this  cured,  transparent  gum,  and  engravings 
were  also  successfully  transferred  upon  the 
same  material. 

While  carrying  on  his  experiments  secretly, 
perfecting  his  discovery  before  taking  out  his 
patent,  Mr.  Goodyear  came  very  near  being 
suffocated  by  the  gas  generated  in  a  close  room. 
He  escaped  death,  but  was  thrown  into  a  fever 
by  the  accident.  Dr.  Joseph  Bradshaw,  a  skill- 
ful physician,  attended  him.  during  this  sick- 
ness. Mr.  Goodyear  had  previously  formed  a 
pleasant  acquaintance  with  this  gentleman,  and 
the  doctor  had  taken  great  interest  in  the  dis- 
coveries of  his  patient.  He  was  particularly 
struck  with  the  specimens  of  goods  made  upon 
the  last  process,  which,  from  the  new  element 
used,  the  inventor  termed  the  "  acid  gas  "  pro- 
cess. Doctor  Bradshaw  soon  after  made  a  visit 
to  his  friends  in  England,  and  kindly  offered  to 

take  specimens  to  the  manufacturers  of  rubber 
6 


82  TBIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB. 

goods,  and  to  make  arrangements  with  them  for 
the  benefit  of  Mr.  Goodyear.  An  assortment 
of  his  latest  manufactures  was  sent  with  the 
the  doctor,  and  they  were  much  admired  by 
those  that  saw  them,  but  no  further  result  was 
attained.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  India  rubber 
goods  have  since  been  made,  in  any  country, 
equal,  in  beauty  of  design  and  execution,  to 
the  maps,  engravings,  charts,  etc.,  sent  to 
England  at  this  time. 

His  improvement  in  the  manufacture  of  elas- 
tic goods  had  secured  to  such  a  degree  the 
confidence  of  the  community,  that  he  found  no 
difficulty  in  obtaining  a  partner,*  with  suffi- 
cient capital  to  enter  upon  the  manufacture  of 
rubber  goods.  Success  now  appeared  to  be 
certain.  A  building,  with  steam  power,  was 
hired  in  Bank-street,  and  shoes,  life  preservers, 
articles  of  clothing,  and  a  great  variety  of 
useful  and  ornamental  goods,  were  manufac- 

*  Mr.  William  Ballard. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  83 

tured.  About  the  same  time  a  large  factory, 
with  its  machinery,  situated  on  Staten  Island, 
was  engaged,  and  a  warehouse  also  in  Broad- 
way, for  the  sale  of  the  goods. 

The  trials  of  this  long-suffering  and  perse- 
vering man  seemed  to  be  drawing  to  a  close, 
and  an  almost  unlimited  opening  for  a  success- 
ful business  appeared  before  him.  He  re- 
moved his  family  to  Staten  Island,  that  he 
might  once  more  enjoy  the  comfort  of  his 
own  home. 

An  unexpected  trouble  now  broke  upon  him, 
and  swept  away  all  his  prospects  of  success. 
The  memorable  and  general  failure  in  business 
occurring  at  this  time — 1836,  1837 — rendered  a 
new  enterprise  impossible,  and  swept  away  the 
entire  fortune  of  the  gentleman  with  whom  he 
was  associated.  This  disaster  left  Mr.  Good- 
year pennyless,  and  took  away  his  only  resource 
for  providing  bread  for  his  family.  The  com- 
munity attributed  the  failure,  not  to  its  true 


84  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

caT18e — the  loss  of  means  on  the  part  of  the  man- 
ufacturers, but  to  the  want  of  merit  in  the  im- 
provement, and  turned  a  cold  shoulder  to  all 
the  propositions  of  the  still  sanguine  inventor, 
to  invest  money  in  his  patents. 

At  the  factory,  having  access  to  the  machin- 
ery upon  which  prints  had  been  previously 
manufactured,  Mr.  Goodyear  succeeded  in 
printing  finely,  in  colors  and  in  bronze,  some 
piano  and  table  covers  and  ladies'  aprons,  which 
brought  them,  by  their  sale,  a  little  food.  The 
intelligent,  patient,  devoted  mother  of  the  fam- 
ily at  this  time  made,  with  her  own  hands,  the 
first  globes  constructed  from  the  pure  gum.  It 
was  a  constant  struggle  to  provide  for  the  fam- 
ily from  day  to  day.  Mr.  Goody  ear's  brother 
Robert,  who,  with  his  family,  was  then  living 
with  them,  with  his  hook  and  line  made  the  ad- 
joining sea  contribute  to  save  them  from  utter 
destitution.  Mrs.  Goodyear,  with  wonderful 
ingenuity,  manufactured  from  the  scraps  of 


TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR.  85 

pasteboard  left  from  her  husband's  experiments, 
the  bonnets  which  they  wore  to  church. 

We  now  enter  upon  the  darkest  hours  in  Mr. 
Goodyear's  experience.  Had  he  not  been  sus- 
tained by  a  confidence  in  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence, amounting  almost  to  inspiration,  he 
would  have  abandoned  a  pursuit  that  yielded 
him  only,  and  constantly,  disappointment,  and 
had  now  brought  him  to  the  verge  of  beggary. 


86  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTER  ym. 

THE  HOUR  OF  TRIAL. 

MR.  GOODYEAR  had  absolutely  nothing  to  de- 
pend upon  now  but  the  few  articles  of  furni- 
ture that  remained  to  him,  and  which,  one 
after  another,  were  exchanged  for  bread.  He 
pawned  his  umbrella  to  Mr.  Yanderbilt  to 
secure  ferry  tickets  to  the  city.  He  relates,  as 
an  illu. Cation  of  the  kind  providence  that  he 
never  failed  to  notice,  that  one  day  he  had  put 
into  his  pocket  a  small  article  which  he  greatly 
valued,  and  went  out  for  the  purpose  of  obtain- 
ing food  with  it.  Before  reaching  the  pawn- 
broker's shop  he  met  a  man  to  whom  he  was 
indebted,  and  from  whom  he  expected  to  re- 
ceive bitter  reproaches.  But  what  was  his  as- 
tonishment to  be  accosted  with  the  question, 
"  "What  can  I  do  for  you  ? "  On  becoming  sat- 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB.  87 

isfied  that  he  was  not  mocking  his  helplessness, 
but  was  sincere  in  his  proffers,  he  told  him  that 
he  was  in  search  of  food,  and  that  fifteen  dol- 
lars would  greatly  oblige  him.  The  money 
was  immediately  forthcoming,  food  was  ob- 
tained, and  the  prized  article  was  saved  for  a 
more  distressing  hour.  They  were  reduced  to 
one  set  of  teacups  of  the  value  of  fifty  cents. 
These  were  washed  up  after  breakfast,  and  used 
by  the  still  diligent  and  hopeful  experimenter 
for  the  mixing  of  his  gum  elastic  compounds. 

About  this  time  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  De 
Forest,  met  him  near  Holt's  Hotel.  He  looked 
sad.  "  Give  me  ten  dollars,  brother,"  he  said ; 
"  I  have  pawned  my  last  silver  spoon  to  pay 
my  fare  to  the  city."  "  You  must  not  go  on 
so ;  you  cannot  live  in  this  way !"  Mr.  De  For- 
est said  to  him.  u  I  am  going  to  do  better," 
was  his  characteristic  answer. 

A  small  loan  from  a  friend  relieved  him  from 
immediate  suffering,  and  enabled  him  to  look 


88  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

around  for  some  new  opening  for  the  develop- 
ment of  his  inventions.  The  large  factory 
which  had  been  engaged  upon  the  island  was 
standing  unoccupied,  and  he  tried  to  induce  the 
stockholders  to  take  hold  of  it  again  and  use 
his  improvements  in  the  manufacture  of  rubber 
goods.  But  their  previous  experiments  in  the 
gum  had  been  so  disastrous,  that,  during  the  six 
months  he  was  upon  the  island,  he  could  not 
persuade  one  of  the  proprietors  to  look  at  his 
improvements,  or  even  to  visit  his  own  proper- 
ty at  the  factory. 

About  this  time  he  met,  at  the  store  of  the 
agents  of  the  Roxbury  Rubber  Company,  Mr. 
J.  Haskins,  one  of  the  stockholders  of  the  com- 
pany, who  examined  with  much  interest  the  sam- 
ples of  the  goods  Mr.  Goodyear  had  manufac- 
tured by  his  new  process.  Mr.  Haskins  invited 
him  to  come  to  Boston,  and  proffered  him  all 
the  aid  in  his  power ;  a  pledge  that  he  did  not 
forget. 


TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR.  89 

During  the  many  painful  years  of  trial  and 
disappointment  that  followed  his  removal  east, 
Mr.  Goodyear  found  in  Mr.  Haskins  an  inter- 
ested co-laborer  in  his  work,  and  one  ready  to 
aid,  according  to  the  measure  of  his  ability,  even 
after  he  had  met  with  repeated  losses  himself 
in  the  rubber  business ;  loaning  him  money 
when  others  refused  him,  and  encouraging  him 
when  it  was  thought  foolishness  in  the  extreme 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  a  business  which 
proved  unvaryingly  so  disastrous. 

Mr.  Goodyear,  finding  that  the  effort  to  in- 
duce the  India  rubber  men  of  New  York  to 
resume  the  business  was  unavailing,  and  having 
secured  another  small  loan  of  money,  with  a 
package  of  his  best  specimens,  started  for  Rox- 
bury,  Massachusetts,  the  fountain-head  of  rub- 
ber manufactures,  where  immense  amounts 
of  money  had  been  invested  and  lost  in  the 
business. 

He  found  friends  here  who  had  known  him 


90  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

in  the  hardware  line,  who  generously  forwarded 
his  designs  as  far  as  they  had  ability. 

Mr,  Chaffee.  whose  inventive  genius  had 
given  the  business  its  first  great  movement,  was 
particularly  interested.  He  admired  his  speci- 
mens, and  encouraged  him  to  persevere.  Mr. 
Chaffee,  supposing,  as  had  Mr.  Goodyear,  that 
the  adhesiveness  of  the  goods  arose  from  the 
use  of  turpentine,  had  invented  heavy  machine- 
ry, which  had  been  constructed  at  great  ex- 
pense, for  the  purpose  of  dissolving  the  gum 
without  its  use.  The  experiment  seemed 
successful  for  a  time;  but,  as  we  have  seen 
in  the  experiments  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  it  was 
ultimately  discovered  that  the  stickiness  was 
a  quality  of  the  gum  itself,  and  not  occasioned 
by  its  solvents.  The  temporary  revival  of  the 
trade,  which  followed  the  new  method,  subsided, 
when  the  old  difficulties  appeared  again. 

Messrs.  Chaffee  and  Haskins  secured  assist- 
ance for  Mr.  Goodyear,  and  gave  him  the  use 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  91 

of  the  valuable  machinery  standing  idle  in 
their  factory. 

Again  prosperity  seemed  to  smile  upon  the 
persevering  inventor.  He  discovered  a  new 
method  of  constructing  rubber  shoes,  for  which 
a  patent  was  granted.  This  he  sold  to  meet  his 
immediate  wants,  a  course  he  was  obliged  to 
pursue  with  many  of  his  improvements,  thus 
cutting  himself  off  from  any  continued  profit 
from  them. 

The  Providence,  Khode  Island,  establishment, 
that  bought  this  patent,  long  after  successfully 
manufactured  shoes  under  it.  He  made  also 
pianoforte  covers,  tablecloths,  and  carriage- 
cloths,  superior  to  any  that  had  been  previously 
produced  in  the  United  States.  The  demand 
for  the  goods  enabled  him  to  sell  licenses  for 
their  manufacture  to  other  companies.  His 
profits  in  a  single  year  amounted  to  four  or  five 
thousand  dollars.  He  removed  his  family  to 
Roxbury,  and  entered  with  all  his  accustomed 


92  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

enthusiasm,  both  upon  the  manufacture  of 
goods,  and  upon  his  studies  for  further  improve- 
ments in  the  process. 

It  was  a  wonderful  change  for  his  little  fam- 
ily, from  the  borders  of  absolute  want  to  the 
comforts  of  the  home  which  the  apparently 
successful  father  had  now  provided  for  them. 
A  very  small  portion,  however,  of  the  money 
received  for  his  beautiful  goods  and  licenses 
was  used  to  administer  to  their  pleasure,  or  even 
comfort.  An  exchange,  at  the  little  grocery 
near  them  on  Staten  Island,  of  a  piece  of  mus- 
lin, that  was  not  so  much  needed  at  that  mo- 
ment, for  some  patterns  of  print,  answered  the 
anxious  question  how  the  children  were  to  be 
provided  with  something  to  wear  when  called 
to  their  new  home  in  Koxbury.  They  were 
delighted,  when  taken  into  their  pleasant  rooms 
in  the  Norfolk  House,  to  find  the  tables  loaded 
with  specimens  of  the  beautiful  fabrics  which 
their  father  had  already  prepared  for  exhibition, 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB.  93 

and  the  parlors  constantly  visited  by  intelligent 
people,  who  were  greatly  interested  in  examin- 
ing them. 

Mrs.  Goodyear  preserved  her  simple  and 
economical  habits.  She  waited  upon  the  serv- 
ices of  the  sanctuary,  and  attended  the  meetings 
of  the  benevolent  societies  of  the  church  where 
they  worshiped,  with  her  well-dressed  friends, 
clad  herself  in  plain  calico. 

Her  daughter  still  remembers  the  delight 
she  felt,  occasioned  by  the  gift  to  her  mother 
of  a  black  bombazine  dress,  by  an  old  gentle- 
man who  had  become  interested  in  the  family. 
About  this  time  her  mother  made  for  this 
daughter  a  dress  of  brown  silk,  which  had 
been  used  to  emboss  India  rubber,  and  this 
remained  her  chief  dependence  during  the 
years  of  poverty  which  followed,  and  is  still 
treasured  as  a  relic  of  those  days. 

These  simple  family  recitals  are  preserved 
to  show  that  all  the  means  secured  by  this 


94:   '  TBIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOR. 

earnest  man,  whose  life  we  are  recording,  from 
the  sale  of  his  inventions,  instead  of  being 
devoted  to  the  present  enjoyment  of  his  fam- 
ily, or  invested  for  their  future  support,  were 
immediately  given  to  the  one  great  mission  of 
his  life,  the  development  and  application  of 
this  peculiar  natural  product. 

In  the  summer  of  1838  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  Mr.  Nathaniel  Hayward,  of 
Woburn,  Massachusetts,  who  had  been  em- 
ployed as  foreman  of  a  rubber  company 
which  had  existed  in  the  town,  but  which 
had  failed  and  been  disbanded.  Mr.  Hay- 
ward  had  the  use  of  the  factory,  and  manufac- 
tured a  few  articles  on  his  own  account.  He 
had  a  process  of  hardening  and  drying  the 
gum  by  placing  a  small  amount  of  sulphur  in 
it,  or  by  spreading  a  small  quantity  over  it, 
and  submitting  it  to  the  heat  of  the  sun.  This 
process  Mr.  Hayward,  who  was  an  uneducated 
man,  said  was  revealed  to  him  in  a  dream. 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  95 

The  same  result,  probably  unknown  to  Mr. 
Hayward  and  to  Mr.  Goodyear,  had  been  ob- 
tained, after  long  and  careful  experiments,  by 
a  German  chemist,  and  was  published  in  a 
treatise,  prepared  only  for  those  engaged  in 
the  rubber  manufacture,  and  entitled,  "  A  His- 
tory of  India  Rubber."  In  this  volume  the 
scientific  author,  Dr.  F.  Leudersdorff,  points  out 
the  various  difficulties,  arising  from  the  decom- 
position of  the  gum,  which  had  been  experien- 
ced by  American  manufacturers,  and  attributes 
them  to  the  resinous  properties  of  the  oil  of 
turpentine;  and  this,  he  thinks,  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  correcting  by  the  use  of  sulphur  in 
small  quantities.  As  was  practiced  by  Mr. 
Hayward,  without  any  clear  comprehension  of 
the  chemical  cause  for  the  result,  this  German 
chemist  directed  that  where  the  surface,  by  ex- 
posure, had  begun  to  decompose,  finely  pow- 
dered sulphur  should  be  strewn  upon  it  and  rub- 
bed in,  and  asserted,  that  in  this  way  the  fabric 


96  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

would  be  rendered  dry  and  serviceable.  Dr. 
Leudersdorff  had  not  discovered  the  still  fatal 
objection  to  this  process,  that,  while  it  cured 
the  surface,  the  interior  of  the  substance  pre- 
served its  original  quality,  and  was  constantly 
exposed  to  decomposition. 

The  process  of  Mr.  Hayward,  however,  had 
not  attracted  the  attention  of  the  rubber 
manufacturers  in  this  country,  or  even  of 
the  company  that  had  employed  him,  and  it 
had  the  serious  objection  of  causing  a  very 
disagreeable  smell  whenever  it  was  used.  Mr. 
Goodyear  noticed  that  its  effect  upon  the  sur- 
face of  the  gum  was  much  the  same  as  that 
produced  by  his  "  acid  gas "  process,  and  for 
the  reason,  (although  it  did  not  strike  him  at 
the  time,)  that  nearly  the  same  chemical  ele- 
ments were  used  in  both  processes,  in  different 
combinations ;  the  sulphuric  acid,  and  the  sul- 
phur and  the  sun,  both  producing  common 
results.  For  a  small  consideration,  Mr.  Good- 


TRIALS   OF  AN   INVENTOR.  97 

year  purchased  the  patent  which  Mr.  Hay- 
ward  had  taken  out  for  his  sulphur  drying 
invention.  He  also  occupied  the  Woburn  fac- 
tory, and  employed  Mr.  Hayward  in  the  man- 
ufacture of  life-preservers  and  other  articles 
by  the  two  modes  they  had  discovered. 

The  sulphur  drying  had  awakened  the  curi- 
osity of  Mr,  Goodyear,  and,  with  the  fine 
machinery  of  his  Koxbury  factory,  he  entered 
upon  a  series  of  new  experiments  with  the  use 
of  this  substance. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise  that  he  began 
now  to  feel  that  he  was  about  to  realize  the 
fulfillment  of  his  highest  expectations.  The 
public,  although  often,  heretofore,  deceived 
and  disappointed,  sympathized  with  him  in  his 
confidence  that  his  improvements  had  over- 
come the  final  and  chief  obstacle  to  the 
universal  use  of  rubber,  wherever  its  peculiar 
qualities  were  required.  He  made  at  this 
period  many  novel  and  useful  applications  of  the 


98  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

prepared  gum.  He  had  newspapers  printed 
upon  thin  sheets  of  it,  and  many  fancy  articles. 

With  the  prospect  of  a  considerable  and 
an  increasing  income,  Mr.  Goodyear  hastened 
to  gather  his  family  around  him,  to  share  with 
him  the  prosperity  with  which  Providence 
seemed  about  to  crown  him.  His  aged  parents 
and  his  two  younger  brothers,  who  had  suf- 
fered with  him  in  his  failure  in  business,  now 
joined  him. 

But  God  had  further  trials  in  store  for  him. 
Continued  success  in  his  present  undertaking 
would  have  delayed,  if  it  had  not  forbidden,  the 
final  and  great  discovery  by  which  this  sub- 
stance has  been  made  so  invaluable  and  of 
such  extensive  use.  It  is  hard  necessity  that, 
with  God's  blessing,  becomes  the  mother  of 
invention. 

While  the  public  had  become  satisfied  with 
the  result  of  his  experiments,  and  the  inventor 
himself  imagined  that  he  had  done  all  he 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  99 

could  to  improve  the  material,  lie  was  led  to 
discover,  by  a  very  serious  and  painful  test, 
that  he  had  not  accomplished  as  much  as  he 
hoped.  He  and  others  had  supposed  that  the 
whole  body  of  the  gum  was  cured  by  the 
process  which  had  secured  such  a  smooth,  dry, 
and  beautiful  surface.  He  was  soon  to  find 
that  while  the  surface  was  indeed  changed, 
just  below  this  the  gum  retained  all  its  natu- 
ral and  peculiar  qualities.  This  fact  was  now 
to  be  revealed. 

His  beautiful  goods  had  attracted  so  much 
attention,  that  the  government  gave  him  an 
order  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  India  rubber  mail 
bags.  This  fact  was  generally  known.  Mr. 
Goodyear  was  confident  of  success,  and  took  no 
pains  to  conceal  his  contract.  It  was  an  in- 
valuable public  advertisement  of  his  manufac- 
tures, and  if  his  work  proved  satisfactory,  his 
invention  would  be  admitted  to  be  a  complete 
success.  The  mail  bags  were  completed  in  the 


100  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

summer  season,  and  were  exposed  for  inspec- 
tion about  the  factory.  They  were  beautiful  in 
form  and  color,  and  excited  great  admiration 
among  the  numerous  visitors  that  came  to  in- 
spect them.  He  was  called  away  by  his  busi- 
ness for  a  few  weeks  from  home,  and  when  he 
returned  what  was  his  consternation  to  discover 
that  his  admired  mail  bags  were  decomposing 
and  dropping  from  their  handles.  He  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  using,  in  his  later  experi- 
ments, white  lead,  vermilion,  and  other  color- 
ing substances;  and  in  order  to  give  his  bags 
an  appropriate  leather  hue,  he  had  introduced 
them  freely  into  their  composition.  These 
proved  deleterious  as  the  gum  was  then  cured ; 
after  his  final  invention  he  was  enabled  to  use 
them  again  freely  and  safely.  He  very  prop- 
erly remarks,  "that  had  it  not  been  for  this 
misfortune  from  the  use  of  these  articles,  in 
all  human  probability  the  vulcanizing  process 
would  never  have  been  discovered." 


TKIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  101 

This  well-known  and  unqualified  failure  was 
the  deathblow  to  his  opening  prospects.  The 
public,  so  often  made  the  victims  by  unsuccess- 
ful experimenters  in  this  article,  seemed  to 
become  utterly  disgusted  with  the  business 
and  the  material.  Mr.  Goodyear  had  manufac- 
tured and  sold  throughout  the  country  several 
thousand  life  preservers,  colored  by  the  use 
of  the  same  substances  which  he  had  em- 
ployed in  his  mail  bags,  and  these  after  a 
short  time  began  to  decompose.  "  And  that," 
as  he  says  with  affecting  simplicity,  "  which  he 
had  represented  as  a  useful  discovery,  and 
which  was  so  in  fact,  was  pronounced  by  the 
public  to  be  a  complete  failure.  Instead  of 
realizing  the  large  fortune  which,  by  all  ac- 
quainted with  his  prospects,  was  considered 
certain,  his  whole  invention  would  not  bring 
him  a  week's  living."  From  a  condition  of 
comparative  ease  and  comfort,  he  was  once 
again  reduced  to  absolute  want.  Everything 


102  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

he  possessed  of  a  salable  character  was  sold  at 
auction  for  the  payment  of  his  debts.  Once 
more  he  had  the  pain  of  seeing  his  aged  parents 
and  family,  through  his  misfortunes,  stripped 
of  their  means  of  support.  It  is  not  a  matter 
of  astonishment  that  they  should  now  think 
his  unsuccessful  experiments  had  been  carried 
far  enough.  He  had  spent  four  years  in 
fruitless  attempts  to  make  improvements  in  a 
substance  that  had  baffled,  thus  far,  all  the 
ingenuity  of  inquiring  minds,  and  ruined  every- 
body that  had  meddled  with  it.  An  immense 
amount  of  capital  had  been  sunk  by  it;  and 
the  community  had  become  so  exasperated  by 
their  losses  that  they  could  hardly  endure  the 
mention  of  it.  Mr.  Goodyear  had  yielded  his 
undivided  attention  to  it,  doing  nothing  be- 
sides. "It  was  generally  agreed,"  he  says, 
"  that  the  man  who  could  proceed  further  in  a 
course  of  this  sort  was  fairly  deserving  of  all 
the  distress  brought  upon  himself,  besides  being ' 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  103 

justly  debarred  the  sympathy  of  others."  His 
friends  advised  his  return  to  his  old  business 
in  hardware,  in  which  he  was  an  accomplished 
merchant,  and  which  promised  him  some  posi- 
tive return  for  his  labor.  He  must  choose  at 
once  either  to  enter  upon  another  line  of  busi- 
ness, or  continue  in  this  suffering  and  weary 
course  of  experimenting ;  not  merely  exposing 
himself  to  discomforts,  but  bringing  down  upon 
the  innocent  heads  of  his  family  untold  mis- 
eries. What  a  dilemma  was  this !  How  could 
he  hesitate  what  to  do?  A  stronger  than  a 
human  hand  guided  him  in  the  path  he  took, 
and  a  voice,  that  others  could  not  hear,  pene- 
trated his  soul :  "  This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in 
it."  So  he  turned  aside  from  the  respectable 
business  to  the  depressing,  but  important,  ex- 
periments of  the  "  visionary  "  inventor. 

With  the  assistance  of  his  family,  he  manu- 
factured a  few  articles  by  the  old  process,  and 
by  this  means,  with  his  familiar  resort  to  the 


104:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

pawnbrokers,  he  managed  to  eke  out  a  humble 
living. 

If  his  experiments  had  required  any  capital, 
beyond  a  small  sum  required  to  purchase  his 
raw  gum  and  simple  chemicals,  or  any  ma- 
chinery, or  any  assistance,  outside  of  his  own 
family,  he  would,  from  necessity,  have  been 
compelled  to  yield  to  the  entreaties  of  his 
friends  or  to  the  absolute  impossibility  of  ob- 
taining the  required  facilities.  No  companies 
nor  individuals  were  willing  longer  to  throw 
away  their  money  upon  such  an  apparently 
hopeless  undertaking. 

So  far  from  despairing  under  this  fearful 
pressure  of  poverty  and  responsibility,  he  says 
of  himself  at  this  time,  "  the  inventor  now  ap- 
plied himself  alone,  with  unabated  ardor  and 
diligence,  to  detect  the  cause  of  his  misfortune, 
and,  if  possible,  to  retrieve  the  lost  reputation 
of  his  invention ;  and,  as  had  happened  on 
former  occasions,  he  had  hardly  time  enough  to 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOE.  105 

realize  the  extent  of  his  embarrassments,  before 
lie  became  intently  engaged  with  another  ex- 
periment, and  his  '  mind  buoyant  with  new 
hopes  and  expectations;  which,  as  it  afterward 
proved,  were  to  be,  for  this  time  at  least,  more 
than  realized." 

The  effect  of  the  sulphur  upon  the  surface  of 
the  gum  had  greatly  excited  his  interest,  and 
he  pressed  his  experiments  in  this  direction. 

He  had  removed  his  family  to  Woburn,  and 
was  closing  up  the  business  of  the  factory.  As 
he  permitted  no  time  to  be  lost,  he  was  still 
carrying  on  his  experiments  in  his  own  house. 
He  made  a  workshop  of  his  parlor,  and  here 
with  his  family  he  manufactured  rubber  shoes. 
Two  feeble  men  were  employed  in  the  business, 
who  could  only  perform  light  work,  and  by 
medical  advice  were  using  a  bread  and  milk 
diet,  so  that  they  were  content  with  the  limited 
fare  of  their  employer.  In  all  their  extremities 
this  family  was  always  a  happy  one.  The 


106  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

hopeful  and  devout  mother  never  murmured 
for  the  lack  of  anything  that  might  add  to  their 
comfort,  but  was  ever  reminding  them  to  be 
grateful  for  what  they  had  and  trustful  for  the 
future.  They  needed  the  discipline  they  were 
Buffering,  she  said,  because  they  might  have 
been  themselves,  heretofore,  uncharitable  in 
their  judgment  of  the  poor. 

Mr.  Goodyear,  amid  all  the  pressure  of  his 
cares  and  the  constant  struggle  of  his  mind  to 
solve  the  difficult  problem  upon  which  he  was 
studying,  was  always  genial  in  his  family.  He 
had  a  keen  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  and  enjoyed 
a  hearty  laugh  even  at  the  expense  of  their 
poverty.  His  little  Willie,  then  two  years  of 
age,  once  tried  to  put  on  his  shoe  by  crowding 
his  little  fat  foot  through  the  big  hole  in  the  toe 
of  it.  This  trifling  incident  greatly  amused  the 
father,  and  he  often  told  of  it  in  brighter  days. 

Mr.  Goodyear  was  now  trying  to  discover 
the  effect  of  heat  upon  the  same  compounds 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  107 

out  of  which  his  mail-bags  were  made.  His 
brother,  and  a  number  of  individuals  who  were 
acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  gum  and  its 
manufacture,  were  sitting  in  his  kitchen  with 
him  one  winter  evening  about  this  time.  While 
engaged  in  his  usual  discussion  about  his  exper- 
iments, and  making  a  rapid  gesture  in  his 
earnestness,  a  piece  of  gum,  which  he  held  in 
his  hand,  accidentally  came  in  contact  with  the 
hot  stove.  As  the  gum  in  its  natural  state 
melts  at  a  low  degree  of  heat,  what  was  his 
astonishment  to  notice  that  it  charred  like 
leather  without  dissolving.  No  portion  of  it 
was  sticky. 

His  daughter  says :  "  As  I  was  passing  in 
and  out  of  the  room,  I  casually  observed  the 
little  piece  of  gum,  which  he  was  holding 
near  the  fire,  and  I  noticed  also  that  he 
was  unusually  animated  by  some  discovery 
which  he  had  made.  He  nailed  the  piece 
of  gum  outside  the  kitchen  door  in  the 


108  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

intense  cold.  In  the  morning  he  brought 
it  in,  holding  it  up  exultingly.  He  had 
found  it  perfectly  flexible,  as  it  was  when 
he  put  it  out.  This  was  proof  enough  of  the 
value  of  his  discovery." 

Of  this  great  hour  of  discovery,  the  turn- 
ing point  in  his  life,  although  terrible  years 
of  patient  endurance  of  suffering  and  want 
were  before  him,  Mr.  Parton  remarks :  "  To 
say  that  he  was  astonished  at  this  would  but 
faintly  express  his  ecstacy  of  amazement.  The 
result  was  absolutely  new  to  all  experience. 
India  rubber  not  melting  in  contact  with  red- 
hot  iron  I  A  man  must  have  been  five  years 
absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  an  object,  to  compre- 
hend his  emotions.  He  felt  as  Columbus  felt 
when  he  saw  the  land  bird  alighting  upon  his 
ship,  and  the  driftwood  floating  by.  But,  like 
Columbus,  he  was  surrounded  with  an  unbe- 
lieving crew.  Eagerly  he  showed  his  charred 
India  rubber  to  his  brother,  and  to  the  other 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  109 

bystanders,  and  dwelt  upon  the  novelty  and 
marvelousness  of  his  fact.  They  regarded  it 
with  complete  indifference.  The  good  man 
had  worn  them  all  out.  Fifty  times  before  he 
had  run  to  them,  exulting  in  some  new  dis- 
covery, and  they  supposed  of  course  that  this 
was  another  of  his  chimeras."  This  was  in  the 
early  months  of  1839.  "When,  by  a  series  of  ex- 
periments, he  had  satisfied  himself  that  he  had 
discovered  a  process  of  curing  the  rubber  entire- 
ly through,  and  that  the  new  substance  resisted 
heat  and  cold  and  the  strongest  acids,  before 
he  had  convinced  another  person,  or  received 
the  slightest  return  for  all  his  toil,  he  says,  '*'  I 
felt  myself  amply  repaid  for  the  past,  and  quite 
indifferent  as  to  the  trials  of  the  future."  It 
was  well  for  him  that  he  did,  for  it  was  only 
after  two  full  years,  passed  in  the  most  distress- 
ing circumstances,  that  he  was  able  to  convince 
one  person,  out  of  his  immediate  family  circle, 
that  he  had  made  a  valuable  discovery. 


110  TRIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOB. 

This  charred  rubber  was  not  in  a  serviceable 
condition,  and,  on  this  account,  failed  to  attract 
the  attention  of  any  one  but  the  enthusiastic 
inventor;  but  he  inferred,  very  prophetically, 
that  if  the  process  of  charring  could  be  stopped 
at  the  right  point  it  would  divest  the  gum  of 
all  its  native  adhesiveness.  Upon  further  trial 
he  was  convinced  of  this,  by  noticing  that  the 
rubber  could  not  be  melted  in  boiling  sulphur 
at  any  heat,  but  always  charred.  He  also 
noticed,  in  trying  the  experiment  before  an 
open  fire,  that  around  the  border  of  the  charred 
substance  there  was  an  edge  of  the  fabric  not 
charred  but  perfectly  cured.  The  question 
•  now  was,  what  degree  of  heat  should  be  used  ? 
The  difficulty  of  reaching  this  discovery  will 
be  seen  when  it  is  stated  that,  "at  the 
present  tune  it  takes  an  intelligent  man  a 
year  to  learn  how  to  conduct  the  process 
with  certainty,  though  he  is  provided  from 
the  start  with  the  best  implements  and  appli- 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  Ill 

ances    which    twenty    years'    experience    has 


The  first  successful  experiment  was  tried  in 
his  own  house,  assisted  by  his  family.  He 
made  up  a  large  fire  in  his  bedroom,  and  be- 
fore it  he  cured  a  square  yard  of  rubber  cloth. 
As  it  was  his  custom  to  test  his  experiment  by 
wearing,  he  had  it  made  up  into  a  vest  and 
cap. 

Thus  the  two  greatest  improvements  in  rub- 
ber seem  to  be  the  results  of  pure  accident. 
They  occurred  indirectly,  and  would  have 
attracted  no  attention  save  from  the  mind  of 
one  who  allowed  nothing  connected  with  his 
experiments  to  escape  his  notice. 

The  circumstance  suggesting  it,  as  he  proper- 
ly remarks,  was  like  the  falling  of  the  apple  to 
Newton.  "  It  was  suggestive  of  an  important 
fact  to  one  whose  mind  was  previously  pre- 
pared to  draw  an  inference  from  any  occur- 
*  Parton. 


112  TRIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOB. 

rence  which  might  favor  the  object  of  his 
research."  With  Christian  humility  he  prop- 
erly adds,  "  It  may,  therefore,  be  considered  as 
one  of  those  cases  where  the  leading  of  the 
Creator  providentially  aids  his  creatures,  by 
what  are  termed  accidents,  to  attain  those 
things  which  are  not  attainable  by  the  powers 
of  reasoning  he  has  conferred  upon  them." 

To  avail  himself  of  the  steam-power  of  Mr. 
Haskins'  rubber  establishment  in  Lynn,  in  try- 
ing the  experiment  of  curing  the  gum  by  steam, 
he  removed  his  family  to  this  town ;  and  after  a 
short  period  returned  to  Woburn,  all  the  while 
prosecuting  alone  the  inquiry  as  to  the  best 
form  of  applying  heat,  and  the  exact  degree  of 
it,  to  secure  the  highest  results. 

But  now  the  greatest  of  all  the  difficulties  he 
had  to  surmount  stood  directly  across  his  path 
in  the  hour  of  his  positive  success.  His  means^ 
were  utterly  exhausted :  his  friends  had  become 
impatient  at  what  seemed  to  them  his  reckless 


TKIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  113 

obstinacy,  and  could  not  bear  to  hear  the  word 
India  rubber  named  in  their  presence.  "  It 
was  certain,"  he  says,  "  that  nothing  could  be 
done  to  restore  the  confidence  of  the  public  in 
the  vicinity  of  Boston,  or  to  induce  them  to  es- 
tablish the  business  for  a  long  time  to  come, 
and  it  would  have  been  useless  to  visit  any 
other  part  of  the  country  for  this  purpose,  even 
if  he  had  the  means,  without  specimens  large 
enough  to  be  used,  so  as  to  prove  the  utility  of 
the  invention."  But  here  occurred  another 
difficulty.  "  His  experiments  could  no  longer 
be  carried  on  with  a  few  pounds  of  India  rub- 
ber, a  quart  of  turpentine,  a  phial  of  aqua 
fortis,  and  a  little  lamp  black.  He  wanted  the 
means  of  producing  a  high,  uniform,  and  con- 
trollable degree  of  heat,  a  matter  of  much 
greater  difficulty  than  he  anticipated.  "We 
catch  brief  glimpses  of  him  at  this  time  in  the 
volumes  of  testimony  [collected  during  the  re- 
peated trials  in  defence  of  his  patent]  "We  see 
8 


114:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

him  waiting  for  his  wife  to  draw  the  loaves 
from  her  oven,  that  he  might  put  into  it  a 
batch  of  India  rubber  to  bake,  and  watching  it 
all  the  evening,  far  into  the  night,  to  see  what 
effect  was  produced  by  one  hour's,  two  hours', 
three  hours',  six  hours'  baking.  We  see  him 
boiling  it  in  his  wife's  saucepans,  suspending  it 
before  the  nose  of  her  tea-kettle,  and  hanging 
it  from  the  handle  of  that  vessel  to  within  an 
inch  of  the  boiling  water.  We  see  him  roast- 
ing it  in  the  ashes  and  in  hot  sand,  toasting  it 
before  a  slow  fire  and  before  a  quick  fire,  cook- 
ing it  for  one  hour  and  for  twenty-four  hours, 
changing  the  proportions  of  his  compound  and 
mixing  them  in  different  ways.  .  .  .  Then  we  see 
him  resorting  to  the  shops  and  factories  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Woburn,  asking  the  privilege 
of  using  an  oven  after  working  hours,  or  of 
hanging  a  piece  of  India  rubber  in  the  *  man- 
hole' of  the  boiler.  The  foremen  testify  that 
he  was  a  great  plague  to  them,  and  smeared 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  115 

their  works  with  his  sticky  compound;  but 
though  they  regarded  him  as  little  better  than 
a  troublesome  lunatic,  they  all  appear  to  have 
helped  him  willingly."  * 

The  reason  why  so  long  a  period  elapsed  be- 
fore he  could  satisfy  others,  by  the  small 
specimens  he  was  able  to  produce,  was  that 
there  had  been  no  change  wrought  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  goods.  Heretofore  the  outside 
of  the  rubber  had  been  cured,  and  it  had  only 
been  after  the  trial  of  a  year  or  more,  and  in 
different  conditions  of  heat  and  cold,  that  the 
material  had  decomposed  and  proved  to  be 
valueless.  The  inventor  himself  had  been  here- 
tofore as  confident  in  his  assurances  when  the 
experiment  had  resulted  only  in  disappoint- 
ment. But  he  was  prepared  for  anything,  even 
to  beg  the  bread  for  his  family  and  himself,  if 
necessary,  in  order  to  bring  his  invention  before 
the  community.  Indeed,  for  several  years,  he 

*  Parton. 


116  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

had  scarcely  any  support  save  that  whicu  came 
from  the  generous  gifts  of  his  friends  and 
neighbors.  The  fortune  that  would  probably 
come  to  him  if  his  hopes  were  realized,  seemed 
hardly  to  operate  as  a  motive  upon  his  mind  to 
inspire  his  perseverance.  His  great  inspiring 
and  urgent  occasion  for  hastening  the  work  in 
which  he  was  engaged,  was  the  reasonable  fear, 
on  account  of  his  feeble  health,  that  he  might 
die  and  his  discovery  be  lost  to  the  world.  In 
the  event  of  his  death,  it  could  hardly  be  ex- 
pected that  his  theory,  which  he  found  it  so 
difficult  to  establish,  could  survive  him.  This 
fear  almost  overwhelmed  him,  and  threatened 
to  produce  the  very  result  he  dreaded.  He 
says  nothing  sustained  him  but  the  excitement 
caused  by  his  efforts  to  surmount  the  obstacles 
in  his  way.  "  How  he  subsisted  at  this  period," 
he  remarks,  "  charity  alone  can  tell,  for  it  is  as 
well  to  call  things  by  their  right  names,  and  it 
is  little  else  than  charity,  when  the  lender  looks 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB.  117 

upon  what  he  parts  with  as  a  gift.  The  pawn- 
ing or  selling  some  relic  of  better  days,  or  some 
article  of  necessity,  was  a  frequent  expedient. 
His  library  had  long  since  disappeared,  but 
shortly  after  the  discovery  of  this  process  he 
collected  and  sold  at  auction  the  school-books 
of  his  children,  which  brought  him  the  trifling 
sum  of  five  dollars ;  small  as  the  amount  was, 
it  enabled  him  to  proceed.  At  this  step  he  did 
not  hesitate.  The  occasion  and  the  certainty 
of  success  warranted  the  measure  which,  in 
other  circumstances,  would  have  been  sacri- 
lege." His  furniture  was  too  limited  to  afford 
him  a  long  support  by  pawning  it,  and  charity, 
although  enduring,  among  his  neighbors,  could 
not  always  be  cognizant  of  the  necessities  of 
this  self-denying  family. 

A  witness  in  one  of  the  trials  that  took 
place  in  defense  of  his  patents,  testified  that  in 
the  year  1839  he  found  them  "  extremely  desti- 
tute. They  had  sickness  in  the  family.  I  was 


118  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

often  in,  and  found  them  very  poor,  very  desti- 
tute both  for  food  and  fuel.  I  knew  they  had 
to  go  into  the  fields  and  woods  to  glean  fuel. 
They  had  none.  They  had  nothing  to  buy  any 
with.  This  was  before  they  boarded  with  us, 
and  while  they  were  keeping  house.  They  told 
me  they  had  no  money  to  buy  their  bread  with 
from  one  day  to  another.  They  did  not  know 
how  they  should  get  it.  The  children  said  they 
did  not  know  what  they  should  do  for  food. 
They  dug  their  potatoes  before  they  were  half 
grown,  for  the  sake  of  having  something  to  eat. 
Their  son  Charles,  eight  years  old,  used  to  say 
they  ought  to  be  -thankful  that  they  had  the 
potatoes,  for  they  did  not  know  what  they 
should  do  without  them.  "We  used  to  furnish 
them  with  milk,  and  they  wished  us  to  take 
furniture  and  bed-clothes  in  payment  rather 
than  not  pay  for  it.  At  one  time  they  had 
nothing  to  eat,  and  a  barrel  of  flour  was  unex- 
pectedly sent  them." 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  119 

It  was  in  the  winter  when  his  discovery  was 
made,  and  he  found  that  his  goods  did  not 
stiffen  with  the  cold.  Professor  Silliman,  of 
Tale  College,  who  had  always  manifested  a 
deep  interest  in  his  experiments,  and  in  Mr. 
Goodyear  himself,  in  October,  1839,  wrote  this 
certificate:  "Having  seen ' experiments  made, 
and  also  performed  them  myself,  with  the  India 
rubber  prepared  by  Mr.  Charles  Goodyear,  I 
can  state  that  it  does  not  melt,  but  rather  chars 
by  heat,  and  that  it  does  not  stiffen  by  cold, 
but  retains  its  flexibility  in  the  cold,  even  when 
laid  between  cakes  of  ice."  When  the  summer 
returned  his  specimens  remained  uninjured  by 
the  heat;  for  how  could  they  melt,  as  they 
were  prepared  in  a  heat  of  270  degrees  ? 

Of  Mr.  Goodyear's  right  to  the  sole  honor  of 
this  great  discovery,  Judge  Grier  of  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court,  sitting  in  Trenton,  New 
Jersey,  in  September,  1852,  at  the  close  of  the 
memorable  trial  in  which  Daniel  Webster  and 


120  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

Kufus  Choate  were  engaged  as  opposing  coun- 
sel, in  his  decision  says,  "It  is  due  to  Mr. 
Goodyear  to  say,  that  upon  examining  the  cer- 
tificate of  Professor  Silliman;  and  other  evi- 
dence in  the  case,  1  am  entirely  satisfied  that 
he  is  the  original  inventor  of  the  process  of 
vulcanizing  rubber,  and  that  he  is  not  only  en- 
titled to  the  relief  which  he  asks,  but  to  all  the 
merits  and  benefits  of  that  discovery.  Many 
persons  had  made  experiments — they  had  used 
sulphur,  lead,  and  heat,  before  Goodyear's 
patents,  and,  probably,  before  his  discovery. 
But  to  what  purpose?  Their  experiments 
ended  in  discovering  nothing,  except,  perhaps, 
that  they  had  ruined  themselves.  The  great 
difference  between  them  and  Goodyear  is,  that 
he  persisted  in  his  experiments,  and  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  perfecting  a  valuable  discovery,  and 
they  failed.  ...  It  is  when  speculation  has 
been  reduced  to  practice,  when  experiment  has 
resulted  in  discovery,  and  when  that  discovery 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  121 

has  been  perfected  by  patient  and  continued 
experiments — when  some  new  compound,  art, 
manufacture,  or  machine,  has  been  thus  pro- 
duced, which  is  useful  to  the  public,  that  the 
party  making  it  becomes  a  public  benefactor, 
and  entitled  to  a  patent." 

The  great  object  of  Mr.  Goodyear  now  was 
to  prepare  specimens  of  a  larger  and  thicker 
character.  The  first  were  made  of  thin  fabrics, 
and  these  he  had  cured  before  an  open  fire  with 
brushwood,  which  the  kindness  of  his  neighbors 
permitted  his  children  to  gather  in  their  fields, 
as  he  had  not  the  means  to  purchase  more  sub- 
stantial fuel. 

The  success  of  these  experiments,  and  his 
earnest  and  persevering  entreaties,  induced  a 
few  individuals,  whom  he  rewarded  with  India 
rubber  aprons,  to  assist  him  in  building  a  brick 
oven  about  six  feet  square ;  but  his  battle  with 
disappointment  was  not  yet  won.  Before  his 
goods  were  finished  and  prepared  for  the  heat- 


122  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

ing  process,  it  being  summer,  the  material  fer- 
mented three  times  in  succession,  and  could 
not  be  cured.  He  was  unable  at  this  time  to 
discover  the  cause  of  the  trouble.  "  He  was 
puzzled  and  distressed  beyond  description ;  and 
no  single  voice  consoled  or  encouraged  him." 
It  was  at  this  hour  of  positive  suffering,  when  a 
considerable  sum  of  money  would  not  only  give 
positive  relief  from  want,  but  enable  him  to 
develope  and  bring  out  his  great  discovery, 
that  Mr.  Goodyear  had  occasion  to  show  the 
real  nobleness  and  Christian  honesty  of  his 
character.  An  extensive  manufacturing  house 
in  Paris  made  highly  advantageous  proposals 
to  him  for  the  introduction  of  his  previous  im- 
provement— the  acid  gas  process — into  France. 
Instead  of  accepting  the  offer,  in  the  spirit  of 
the  golden  rule,  he  informed  his  correspond- 
ents that  he  was  then  engaged  in  developing 
a  discovery  that  would  render  the  other  value- 
less, and  that  when  he  had  finished  his 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  123 

experiments  he  would   confer  with   them   in 
reference  to  it. 

It  was  not  long  after  declining  the  French 
proposal  that  he  endured  his  worst  extremity  of 
want  and  humiliation.  It  is  thus  graphically 
described  by  Mr.  Parton :  "  It  was  in  the  win- 
ter of  1839-1840.  One  of  those  long  and  ter- 
rible snow  storms,  for  which  New  England  is 
noted,  had  been  raging  for  many  hours,  and 
he  awoke  one  morning  to  find  his  little  cottage 
half  buried  in  snow,  the  storm  still  continuing, 
and  in  his  house  not  an  atom  of  fuel  nor  a  mor- 
sel of  food.  His  children  were  very  young, 
and  he  himself  sick  and  feeble.  The  charity  of 
his  neighbors  was  exhausted,  and  he  had  not 
the  courage  to  face  their  reproaches.  As  he 
looked  out  of  the  window  upon  the  dreary  and 
tumultuous  scene,  'fit  emblem  of  his  condi- 
tion,' he  remarks,  he  called  to  mind  that,  a  few 
days  before,  an  acquaintance,  a  mere  acquaint- 
ance, who  lived  some  miles  off,  had  given  him 


124:  TBIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

upon  the  road  a  more  friendly  greeting  than  he 
was  then  accustomed  to  receive.  It  had  cheered 
his  heart  as  he  trudged  sadly  by,  and  it  now 
returned  vividly  to  his  mind.  To  this  gentle- 
man he  determined  to  apply  for  relief,  if  he 
could  reach  his  house.  Terrible  was  his  strug- 
gle with  the  wind  and  deep  drifts.  Often  he 
was  ready  to  faint  with  fatigue,  sickness,  and 
hunger,  and  would  be  obliged  to  sit  down  upon 
a  bank  of  snow  to  rest.  He  reached  the  house 
and  told  his  story,  not  omitting  the  oft-told  tale 
of  his  new  discovery,  that  mine  of  wealth,  if 
only  he  could  procure  the  means  of  working  it ! 
The  eager  eloquence  of  the  inventor  was  second- 
ed by  the  gaunt  and  yellow  face  of  the  man. 
His  generous  acquaintance  entertained  him 
cordially,  and  lent  him  a  sum  which  not  only 
carried  his  family  through  the  worst  of  winter, 
but  enabled  him  to  continue  his  experiments 
on  a  small  scale.  O.  B.  Coolidge,  of  Woburn, 
was  the  name  of  this  benefactor." 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  125 

He  had  not  yet  lost  his  experience  of  prison 
life.  Daniel  Webster,  in  his  great  argument  in 
behalf  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  quotes  the  following 
letter  written  by  him,  and  dated  "Debtors' 
Prison,  (in  Boston,)  April  21,  1840."  It  is  ad- 
dressed to  two  gentlemen  connected  with  the 
rubber  trade,  and  reads  as  follows : 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  I  have  the  pleasure  to  invite 
you  to  call  and  see  me  at  my  lodgings  on  mat- 
ters of  business,  and  to  communicate  with  my 
family,  and  possibly  to  establish  an  India  rub- 
ber factory  for  myself  on  the  spot.  Do  not  fail 
to  call  on  the  receipt  of  this,  as  I  feel  some 
anxiety  on  the  account  of  my  family.  My  fa- 
ther will  probably  arrange  my  affairs  in  relation 
to  this  hotel,  which,  after  all,  is  perhaps  as  good 
a  resting-place  as  any  this  side  of  the  grave." 

Upon  this  Mr.  Webster  remarks :  "  He  had 
but  two  objects,  his  family  and  his  discovery. 
In  all  his  distress,  and  in  all  his  trials,  his  wife 


126  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

was  willing  to  participate  in  his  sufferings,  and 
endure  everything,  and  hope  everything;  she 
was  willing  to  be  poor ;  she  was  willing  to  go 
to  prison;  she  was  willing  to  share  with  him 
everything,  and  that  was  his  solace.  There  is 
nothing  upon  the  earth  that  can  compare  with 
the  faithful  attachment  of  a  wife." 

Finding  it  impossible,  with  such  means  as  he 
could  command,  to  prepare  large  specimens  of 
his  vulcanized  rubber,  as  he  called  it,  and  sat- 
isfied that  riothing  could  be  done  in  the  vicinity 
of  Boston,  he  now  endeavored,  with  such  speci- 
mens as  he  had,  to  reach  New  York ;  but  where 
could  he  find  money  to  meet  his  expenses  ?  He 
received  some  assurance  from  a  party  that  had 
formerly  been  in  his  employ,  that  on  his  coming 
to  Boston  he  would  lend  him  fifty  dollars,  with 
which  he  could  support  his  family  in  his  absence 
and  pay  his  own  expenses  to  New  York. 

He  reached  the  city  only  to  be  disappointed 
in  his  expectations  of  a  loan,  and  remained  a 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  12? 

week  at  a  hotel,  hoping,  to  secure  the  small  sum 
required  from  some  other  quarter.  But  his 
efforts  were  fruitless.  At  last  he  applied,  where 
he  had  reason  to  expect  it,  for  the  sum  of  five 
dollars,  with  which  he  might  return  to  his  fam- 
ily. This  was  refused.  In  the  evening  his  bill 
at  the  hotel  was  presented  to  him,  which  he  had 
not  the  means  of  discharging.  Overwhelmed 
with  mortification,  he  went  out  into  the  street 
and  walked  until  long  into  the  night,  meditating 
upon  his  condition.  He  wandered  over  the 
bridge  into  East  Cambridge,  and  stopped  at  the 
house  of  a  friend,  who  received  him  kindly,  and 
made  him  comfortable  for  the  night.  Early 
the  next  morning  he  walked  ten  miles  to  his 
home.  At  the  door  he  was  met  by  one  of  the 
family,  who  informed  him  that  his  youngest 
son,  two  years  of  age,  who  was  in  perfect  health 
when  he  left  home,  was  then  dying.  And  he 
also  learned,  that,  in  addition  to  the  deep 
affliction  into  which  they  had  fallen,  the  person 


128  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

who  had  promised,  when  he  left,  to  supply  the 
necessities  of  his  family  had  failed  to  do  so.  His 
wife  was  confined  to  her  bed  with  an  infant. 
In  all  his  sorrow  he  devoutly  thanked  God  that 
he  had  been  so  providentially,  although  pain- 
fully, turned  back  from  his  journey. 

He  was  tenderly  attached  to  his  children. 
The  loss  of  the  little  boy  was  a  heavy  blow  to 
him.  At  the  funeral,  the  witness,  a  part  of 
whose  touching  testimony  has  been  already 
given,  says,  "  they  walked  to  the  grave.  The 
child  was  carried  in  a  wagon.  They  were  very 
destitute  at  that  time,  and  said  that  they  could 
not  afford  to  hire  carriages." 

Immediately  after  this  sad  and  simple  fune- 
ral he  called  his  older  children  to  their  work, 
saying  to  them,  that  although  sorrowful,  they 
must  earn  their  daily  bread. 

Mr.  Goodyear,  by  a  letter,  now  represented 
the  situation  of  his  family  to  a  gentleman  in 
Boston,  a  sincere  friend,  from  whom  he  was  con- 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  129 

fident  that  he  should  not  receive  a  refusal.  In 
this  he  was  not  disappointed.  He  sent  him 
seven  dollars,  saying  that  he  did  it  out  of 
regard  for  his  family,  and  administering  a 
severe  reprimand  to  himself  for  not  finding 
some  occupation  by  which  he  could  support 
them.  A  stranger  who  happened  to  be  at 
his  friend's  office  when  the  letter  came,  was  so 
moved  by  its  contents  as  to  forward  him  a  bar- 
rel of  flour.  This  was  relief  in  a  timely  hour, 
and  was  most  gratefully  accepted. 

There  was  one  relative  who  had  often  be- 
friended him,  and  whose  name  afterward 
became  indissolubly  associated  with  his  dis- 
covery, as  providing  the  means  of  bringing  it 
fully  to  the  knowledge  of  the  public,  Mr. 
William  De  Forest,  his  brother-in-law,  to  whom 
in  his  extremity  he  now  wrote.  As  here  ended 
his  most  bitter  struggle  with  poverty  and  want 
we  will  close  the  chapter,  and  open  the  next 
with  his  brightening  prospects.  - 


130  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  NEW  ELASTIC  METAL. 

MR.  GOODYEAR'S  letter  to  Mr.  De  Forest 
brought  him  fifty  dollars,  and  enabled  him  to 
to  reach  New  York.  He  submitted  his  inven- 
tion to  the  examination  of  Mr.  William  Eider, 
an  enterprising  merchant,  who  was  so  well  sat- 
isfied with  the  evidences  of  the  value  of  Mr. 
Goodyear's  improvement  in  rubber,  that  he 
agreed  to  furnish  sufficient  capital  to  carry  on 
the  manufacture  for  their  mutual  benefit.  His 
brother  Emory,  a  skillful  manufacturer  himself, 
gave  the  valuable  aid  of  his  practical  judgment 
in  overcoming  the  serious  obstacles  that  were 
met  with  in  the  earliest  attempts  to  prepare 
suitable  machinery  for  vulcanizing  the  rub- 
ber, and  making  the  various  articles  to  be 
offered  for  sale. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  131 

His  family  was  now  placed  beyond  want,  and, 
although  through  all  of  Mr.  Goodyear's  varied 
life  they  were  subjected  to  much  anxiety  and 
many  inconveniences,  they  were  never  brought 
again  to  the  verge  of  absolute  suffering.  Before 
he  had  fairly  overcome  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  preparing  the  rubber,  the  singular  fortune 
that  had  attended  Mr.  Goodyear  in  his  whole 
career,  was  illustrated  again  in  the  failure  of 
Mr.  Rider  and  the  loss  of  his  capital. 

Before  this  occurred  he  had  commenced  man- 
ufacturing operations  in  Springfield,  Mass.,  and 
had  succeeded  in  securing  a  simple  cast-iron 
machine,  by  the  use  of  which  he  prepared 
sheets  of  the  vulcanized  rubber,  and  also 
the  shirred  goods,  out  of  which  suspenders 
and  elastics  are  made,  which  immediately  at- 
tracted the  favorable  attention  of  the  public, 
and  secured  a  large  sale.  These  goods  were 
manufactured  in  the  following  manner:  two 
pieces  of  cloth,  ribbons,  or  any  suitable  fabric, 


132  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

are  covered  with  cement,  small  cords  of  rubber, 
drawn  out  as  far  as  they  will  permit,  are  laid 
between  these  pieces,  and  they  are  pressed  per- 
manently together  by  being  drawn  between  the 
rollers  of  a  machine.  When  the  goods  come 
from  the  rollers  the  cords  of  rubber  contract, 
and  thus  draw  or  ruffle  the  cloth. 

Having  prepared  some  elegant  ribbons  in  this 
way,  they  awakened  the  interest  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  Mr.  De  Forest,  then  an  extensive  woolen 
manufacturer.  He  was  convinced  of  the  value 
of  the  invention,  and  took  the  place  of  Mr. 
Eider  in  supplying  capital  for  its  development. 
It  affords  an  idea  of  the  difficulties  that  still 
remained  to  be  overcome,  and  of  the  wearisome 
labors  of  the  inventor,  (for  it  was  not  until 
three  years  after  this,  in  1844,  that  he  was  able 
to  conduct  his  business  with  sufficient  certainty 
to  feel  safe  in  taking  out  his  patent,)  to  know 
that  Mr.  De  Forest  was  called  upon  to  advance 
between  forty  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  ;  a  sum 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  133 

which  Mr.  Goodyear,  on  account  of  the  ex- 
penses incident  to  the  development  of  his  dis- 
covery, was  never  in  a  condition  to  repay  him. 

It  was  at  this  time,  in  Springfield,  that  he 
had  his  last  experience  of  a  debtor's  prison  in 
this  country.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  never 
availed  himself  of  the  bankrupt  law  to  cover 
himself  from  his  creditors,  being  opposed  to  it 
from  principle ;  but  he  was  now  induced  to 
avail  himself  of  it  simply  to  relieve  himself 
from  malicious  prosecutions,  and  that  he  might 
have  his  time  for  the  benefit  of  his  creditors  and 
others.  He  availed  himself  of  none  of  its  legal 
benefits,  but  immediately  upon  the  turn  in  his 
fortunes  commenced  repaying  his  old  indebted- 
ness, and  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  had  dis- 
charged his  obligations  to  the  amount  of  thirty- 
five  thousand  dollars. 

More  than  ten  years  after  he  commenced  his 
experiments,  and  five  after  he  had  come  in 
eight  of  his  great  discovery — years  of  endurance 


134  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

such  as  few  have  experienced — never  yielding 
to  discouragement,  always  confident  that  the 
result,  although  delayed,  was  certain,  Mr. 
Goodyear  took  out  his  letters  patent  for  the 
new  and  wonderful  material  which  God  had 
enabled  him  to  bestow  upon  the  race. 

"He  had  added  to  the  arts,"  says  Parton, 
"  not  a  new  material  merely,  but  a  new  class 
of  materials,  applicable  to  a  thousand  diverse 
uses. ...  It  was  still  India  rubber,  but  its  sur- 
face would  not  adhere,  nor  would  it  harden  at 
any  degree  of  cold,  nor  soften  at  any  degree  of 
heat.  It  was  a  cloth  impervious  to  water.  It 
was  a  paper  that  would  not  tear.  It  was  parch- 
ment that  would  not  crease.  It  was  leather 
which  neither  rain  nor  sun  would  injure.  It 
was  ebony  that  could  be  run  into  a  mould.  It 
was  ivory  that  could  be  worked  like  wax.  It 
was  wood  that  never  cracked,  shrunk,  nor  de- 
cayed. It  was  metal,  « elastic  metal,'  as  Daniel 
Webster  termed  it,  that  could  be  wound  round 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  135 

the  finger  or  tied  into  a  knot,  and  which  pre- 
served its  elasticity  almost  like  steel.  Trifling 
variations  in  the  ingredients,  in  the  propor- 
tions, and  in  the  heating,  made  it  either  as 
pliable  as  kid,  tougher  than  ox-hide,  as  elastic 
as  whalebone,  or  as  rigid  as  flint.  All  this  is 
stated  in  a  moment ;  but  each  of  these  variations 
in  the  material,  as  well  as  every  article  made 
from  them,  cost  this  indefatigable  man  days, 
weeks,  months,  or  years  of  experiment.  It  cost 
him,  for  example,  several  years  of  most  expens- 
ive trial  to  obviate  the  objections  to  India  rub- 
ber fabrics,  caused  by  the  liability  of  the  gum 
to  peel  from  the  cloth.  He  tried  every  known 
textile  fabric,  and  every  conceivable  process, 
before  arriving  at  the  simple  expedient  of  mix- 
ing fiber  with  the  gum,  by  which  at  length  the 
perfect  India-rubber  cloth  was  produced.  This 
invention  he  only  considered  second  in  value  to 
the  discovery  of  vulcanization.  The  India-rub- 
ber shoe,  as  we  now  have  it,  is  an  admirable 


136  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

article,  light,  strong,  elegant  in  shape,  with  a 
fibrous  sole  that  does  not  readily  wear,  cut,  or 
slip.  As  the  shoe  is  made  and  joined  before 
vulcanization,  a  girl  can  make  twenty-five  pairs 
in  a  day.  They  are  cut  from  the  soft  sheets  of 
gum,  and  joined  by  a  slight  pressure  of  the 
hand.  But  almost  every  step  of  this  process, 
now  so  simple  and  easy,  was  patiently  elabo- 
rated by  Charles  Goodyear.  A  million  and  a 
half  pairs  per  annum  is  now  the  average  num- 
ber made  in  the  United  States  by  this  process. 
The  gum,  which,  when  Goodyear  began  his  ex- 
periments was  a  drug  at  five  cents  a  pound,  has 
recently  been  sold  (1865)  at  one  dollar  and 
twenty  cents  a  pound,  with  all  its  impurities." 
The  factory  in  Springfield  was  under  the 
charge  of  his  brothers,  Nelson  and  Henry,  and 
the  work  undertaken  was  general  experiments 
in  shirred  goods,  clothing,  hose,  etc.  In  the 
autumn  of  1843  Henry  started  a  factory  in 
Naugatuck,  and  in  the  summer  of  1844  intro- 


*»•' 


TEIALS  OF  AN   INVENTOR.  137 

duced  the  steam  process,  dissolving  the  gum 
without  the  use  of  solvents.  It  was  not  until 
the  gum  came  to  be  ground  and  worked  with 
steam  heat,  instead  of  being  dissolved  with  tur- 
pentine, that  doubts  as  to  the  success  of  the 
manufacture  were  removed.  The  blistering 
and  fermenting  of  the  compounds,  under  the 
old  process,  were  so  liable  to  occur,  and  thus  a 
great  loss  in  the  material  occasioned,  that  many 
manufacturers  with  ample  means  became  dis- 
courged,  and  doubted  whether  the  invention 
could  be  made  so  practicable  as  to  become  use- 
ful. When,  however,  these  serious  difficulties 
were  overcome,  the  public  eager  for  the  goods, 
and  the  manufacture  had  come  to  be  a  matter 
of  certainty  and  profit,  then  there  came  up 
to  Mr.  Goodyear's  mind  the  question,  What 
should  be  his  own  course  in  the  future  ?  His 
debts,  which  always  hung  like  a  cloud  over 
him,  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  sell  licenses 
to  manufacture  under  his  patents,  at  an  early 


138  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

period,  before  the  great  value  of  his  improve- 
ments could  be  realized.  He  was  not  a  shrewd 
business  man  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the 
word,  and  was  too  intent  upon  the  great  work 
of  developing  his  discovery,  to  secure  for  himself 
and  his  family  all  the  benefits  that  might  come 
from  a  prudent  management  of  his  patents. 

"  As  soon  as  he  had  brought  his  rubber  shoe 
making  process  to  the  point  where  other  men 
could  make  it  profitable,  he  withdrew  from  the 
manufacturing,  and  sold  rights  to  manufacture 
for  the  consideration  of  half  a  cent  per  pair. 
Five  cents  had  been  reasonable  enough,  and 
would  have  given  him  ample  means  to  continue 
his  labors.  Half  a  cent  kept  him  subject  to 
necessity,  which  seemed  to  compel  him  to 
dispose  of  other  rights  at  rates  equally  low. 
Thus  it  happens  that,  when  the  whole  India 
rubber  trade  of  the  country  paid  him  tribute, 
or  ought  to  have  paid  it,  he  remained  an  em- 
barrassed man." 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  139 

In  order  that  the  work  of  opening  and 
adapting  the  invention  to  every  possible  vari- 
ety of  use  might  go  on,  he  stipulated  with 
the  Naugatuck  Company,  which  was  the  first 
licensed  under  his  patents,  that  they  should 
manufacture  such  articles  as  he  suggested 
from  time  to  time.  But  they  had  observed  the 
embarrassments  which  he  had  brought  upon 
himself  by  his  experiments,  the  great  cost 
originally  of  introducing  a  new  modification, 
while  the  simpler  branches  of  the  trade,  such 
as  suspenders,  shoes,  elastics,  and  clothing, 
commanded  a  ready  sale,  and  so  strenuously 
resisted  his  efforts  that  he  was  virtually  com- 
pelled to  relinquish  his  claim  upon  them. 
"  "With  kind  intentions,  no  doubt,"  he  says, 
"  they,  together  with  other  friends,  earnestly 
deprecated  his  devoting  more  time  or  money 
to  experiments,  and  constantly  urged  him  to 
turn  his  attention  to  obtaining  a  pecuniary 
compensation  from  the  branches  already  estab- 


140  TRIALS  (JF  AN  INVENTOR. 

lished."  Their  advice  was  wholesome,  but  Mr. 
Goodyear  could  not  receive  it.  We  may  call 
it  a  weakness  in  his  character.  We  may  even 
say  he  ought  to  have  first  secured  enough  to 
have  relieved  his  creditors,  and  to  have  provided 
a  competence  for  his  dependent  family  in  the 
event  of  his  death,  which  was  to  be  expected 
at  any  time  through  the  many  infirmities  that 
constantly  wore  upon  his  strength.  But  this 
was  simply  impossible  for  Mr.  Goodyear.  This 
very  delicacy  of  health  made  him  all  the  more 
earnest  to  prosecute  the  work  for  which  he 
seemed  to  himself  commissioned,  before  the 
curtain  of  that  night  fell  down  upon  him,  when 
he  could  no  longer  serve  his  race.  He  seemed 
to  be  oblivious  to  everything  besides  this  great 
appointed  work  which  was  set  before  him  to 
do.  When  suffering  such  excruciating  pains 
from  the  gout,  while  in  England,  that  he 
could  not  bear  to  have  a  person  approach  the 
bed,  Mr.  Hope,  the  banker,  once  remarked  to 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  141 

him  with  astonishment  that  he  could  not 
understand  how  he  should  be  so  susceptible 
to  even  the  approach  of  a  friend,  and  yet 
have  his  bed  weighed  down  with  India  rubber 
substances  upon  which  he  was  experimenting. 
"His  friends,"  remarks  Mr.  Parton,  "smiled 
at  his  zeal,  or  reproached  him  for  it.  It  has 
been  only  since  the  mighty  growth  of  the  busi- 
ness that  they  have  acknowledged  that  he 
was  right,  and  that  they  were  wrong.  They 
remember  him,  sick,  meager,  and  yellow,  now 
coming  to  them  with  a  walking-stick  of  India 
rubber,  exulting  in  the  new  application  of  his 
material,  and  predicting  its  general  use,  while 
they  objected  that  his  stick  had  cost  him  fifty 
dollars ;  now  running  about  among  the  comb 
factories,  trying  to  get  reluctant  men  to  try 
their  tools  upon  hard  rubber,  and  producing 
at  length  a  set  of  combs  that  cost  twenty 
times  the  price  of  ivory  ones;  now  shutting 
himself  up  for  months,  endeavoring  to  make  a 


142  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

sail  of  India  rubber  fabric,  impervious  to 
water,  that  should  never  freeze,  and  to  which 
no  sleet  or  ice  should  ever  cling;  now  exhib- 
iting a  set  of  cutlery  with  India  rubber  han- 
dles, or  a  picture  set  in  an  India  rubber 
frame,  or  a  book  with  India  rubber  covers, 
or  a  watch  with  an  India  rubber  case ;  now 
experimenting  with  India-rubber  tiles  for 
floors,  which  he  hoped  to  make  as  brilliant  in 
color  as  those  of  mineral,  as  agreeable  to  the 
tread  as  carpet,  and  as  durable  as  an  ancient 
floor  of  oak.  There  is  nothing  in  the  history 
of  invention  more  remarkable  than  the  devo- 
tion of  this  man  to  his  object.  .  .  .  The  door- 
plate  of  his  office  was  made  of  it,  his  autobi- 
ography was  written  upon  it,  and  his  mind  by 
day  and  by  night  was  surcharged  with  it.  He 
never  went  to  sleep  without  having  within 
reach  writing  materials  and  the  means  of  mak- 
ing a  light,  so  that  if  he  should  have  an  idea 
in  the  night  he  might  be  able  to  secure  it." 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  143 

In  1845  he  removed  his  family  to  New 
Haven,  and  as  he  was  now  selling  licenses 
under  his  patent  quite  freely,  he  was  in  com- 
paratively easy  circumstances ;  but  all  his  time 
and  means  were  devoted  to  his  one  great 
business  of  fulfilling  the  work  God  had  given 
•him  to  do.  "  I  never  saw  a  man,"  said  his 
private  secretary  at  this  time,*  "  so  entirely 
consecrated  to  his  work.  His  business  was  his 
religion,  and  he  was  as  conscientious  in  the 
faithful  devotion  of  his  hours  to  it,  and  as 
apparently  obeying  a  direct  inspiration  from 
above  in  it,  as  a  minister  or  a  missionary  in 
his  appointed  service."  It  was  not  the  unin- 
telligent labor  of  an  ordinary  mind,  obeying  a 
blind  instinct  and  pushing  on  without  plan, 
trusting  in  happy  accidents  for  his  success,  but 
the  impression  that  this  small,  thin,  sallow, 
nervous  man  made  upon  the  thoughtful  ob- 
server, quoted  above,  was  that  of  an  extraor- 

*  Rev.  A.  S.  Hunt. 


144  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

dinary  genius,  whose  highest  powers  were 
sacredly  devoted  to  what  he  considered  a 
divine  work.  It  was  astonishing,  his  secretary 
remarks,  to  notice  how  slightly  serious  diffi- 
culties affected  him.  It  was  a  constant  expres- 
sion of  his,  in  response  to  the  suggestion  of 
the  obstacles  that  stood  in  the  way  of  accom- ' 
plishing  some  purpose,  "Don't  be  seeing  all 
the  difficulties  that  may  possibly  occur.  If  it 
is  to  be  done  it  must  be  done,  and  it  will  be 
done."  This  extraordinary  devotion  kept  him 
from  being  disturbed  by  the  malicious  efforts 
of  others  to  deprive  him  of  the  benefits  of  his 
valuable  patents,  or  by  the  ungenerous  crit- 
icisms of  friends  or  enemies  upon  the  course 
he  was  taking.  He  lived  in  a  higher  atmo- 
sphere, and  was  too  much  taken  up  by1  his 
sublime  work  to  give  heed  to  the  unjust  or 
ungenerous  deeds  or  words  of  his  fellow-men. 
He  was  willing  to  wait  for  the  proper  estima- 
tion of  himself  and  his  labor,  that  he  knew 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  145 

would  ultimately  come.  He  would  often  say, 
while  engaged  in  his  unappreciated  work, 
".Somebody  will  yet  thank  me  for  it." 

His  mind  was  constantly  running  in  the  direc- 
tion of  human  suffering,  partly  perhaps  because 
his  own  life  was  so  constantly  tortured  by  pain  ; 
and  he  sought  to  make  his  great  invention  the 
solace  of  physical  distress.  An  interesting  and 
beloved  young  lady  in  the  vicinity  of  his  house, 
suffering  from  disease  and  from  the  weariness  of 
confinement  to  the  bed,  turned  his  mind  to  the 
invention  of  the  water-bed,  an  application  of 
his  discovery  that  has  brought  comfort  to  tens 
of  thousands  in  and  out  of  the  army  hospitals. 

At  a  later  period,  hearing  in  the  evening  that 
the  daughter  of  a  friend  was  sick,  and  believing 
that  a  water-bed  would  administer  to  her  relief, 
without  waiting  for  the  coming  day,  he  sent  a 
messenger  at  once,  at  his  own  expense,  to  the  man- 
ufactory at  Naugatuck,  eighteen  miles  distant, 

for  one  of  these  most  comfortable  articles;  with 
10 


146  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

orders,  if  there  were  none  on  hand,  to  call  up 
the  workmen  and  make  one  at  once.  There 
being  none  finished,  this  course  was  taken,  and 
in  a  few  hours  a  bed  was  in  New  Haven, 
and  the  grateful  patient  was  enjoying  its 
refreshment. 

He  seemed  to  conceive  of  the  whole  sublime 
idea,  that  these  merciful  or  useful  applications 
were  not  for  a  few  persons,  or  a  lifetime,  but 
for  millions,  and  for  all  time.  It  was  this  that 
made  him  so  forgetful  of  the  mere  pecuniary 
results  of  his  labor ;  he  had  a  compensation 
that  ordinary  figures  could  not  estimate. 

He  was  naturally  a  very  generous  man.  He 
could  not  look  upon  want  or  suffering  unmoved, 
but  acted  instantly.  His  gifts  were  constant, 
and  scattered  in  the  quietest  and  most  unosten- 
tatious manner,  and  often  without  thought.  He 
was  one  day  riding  with  his  secretary  to  the 
cars ;  his  horse  was  urged  at  the  top  of  his 
speed,  for  he  only  allowed  himself  the  shortest 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  147 

possible  time  after  leaving  his  house  to  reach  the 
station.  On  their  way  they  met  a  lame  man, 
hobbling  along  upon  his  crutches.  He  drew 
his  reins  so  suddenly  as  almost  to  throw  them 
from  the  carriage.  "  Take  them,"  said  he, 
placing  them  in  the  hands  of  his  secretary,  and 
bending  down,  he  asked  kindly,  "  What  is  the 
trouble  with  you,  my  poor  fellow?"  Hardly 
stopping  for  an  answer,  he  took  a  five  dollar 
bill  from  his  pocket,  and  handing  it  to  him, 
caught  up  the  reins  and  drove  on. 

"There  was,"  says  Dr.  Button,  "in  Mr. 
Goodyear  an  admirable  combination  of  grat- 
itude and  generosity,  and  also  a  beautiful  re- 
gard for  his  kindred  and  relatives.  When 
the  days  of  his  prosperity  at  length  came,  he 
remembered  those  who  had  aided  him  in  his 
adversity  and  extremity,  and  he  was  not 
satisfied  with  a  full  payment  of  their  dues. 
Bnt  when  any  of  them  were  in  pecuniary  mis- 
fortune he  aided  them  with  a  princely  gener- 


148  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

osity.  Indeed,  some  of  them  with  their  fam- 
ilies were  really  supported  by  him  for  years. 
He  also,  as  soon  as  he  was  able,  afforded  modes 
of  remunerative  employment  and  ways  of  ad- 
vancement for  many  of  those  who  were  allied 
to  him  or' his  by  kindred.  In  his  manifold 
experiments,  and  through  his  influence  in  con- 
nection with  the  extensive  manufactory  under 
his  patents,  a  large  number  of  them  have  been 
employed,  and  have  found  avenues  to  lucrative 
and  independent  business  for  themselves.  And 
for  all  the  objects  of  benevolence  he  had  an 
open  heart  and  hand,  giving  to  them  cheer- 
fully and  unsparingly  whenever  he  had  money 
at  his  disposal."  It  may  be  said  of  him,  as  was 
tauntingly  said  to  his  Master,  "  He  saved  others, 
himself  he  could  not  save." 

The  great  nourishing  fountain  of  his  kind- 
ness, nobleness,  and  perseverance  was  his  sincere 
piety.  His  secretary  remarks  that  there  were 
few  men  that  said  less  about  a  personal  religious 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOK.  14:9 

experience.  He  had  a  great  shrinking  from 
anything  that  looked  like  pretense  or  cant,  but 
his  piety  was  as  manifest  as  it  was  unpretend- 
ing. His  family  devotions,  which  he  usually 
conducted  himself,  were  occasions  of  peculiar 
interest.  His  prayers  were  offered  in  a  low 
tone  of  voice,  but  little  above  a  whisper,  but 
they  were  peculiarly  impressive,  tender,  rever- 
ent, and  spiritual;  more  so,  says  Mr.  Hunt, 
than  those  of  any  other  person  in  whose  devo- 
tions he  had  united. 

He  was  very  rigid  in  his  religious  principles. 
On  the  Sabbath,  wherever  he  happened  to  be, 
all  forms  of  labor,  and  conversation  upon  secu- 
lar topics,  were  strictly  excluded.  The  Bible, 
religious  services,  books,  or,  what  he  particular- 
ly enjoyed,  religious  poetry,  employed  his  time. 
Mr.  Hunt  says  he  was  often  with  him  at  the 
hotel  in  New  York  when  he  was  overwhelmed 
with  business,  callers  pouring  in  upon  him 
every  day ;  but  nothing  could  induce  him,  how-" 


150  TRIALS  OP  AN  INVENTOR. 

ever  pressing  the  importunity,  to  listen  to  any 
suggestion  of  a  worldly  character  on  the  Sab- 
bath. His  course  became  so  well  understood 
in  this  respect,  that  business  visitors  rarely  in- 
truded upon  him  on  this  day. 

From  such  a  source  as  this,  Mr.  Goodyear 
secured  that  strength  of  purpose  which  enabled 
him,  at  the  expense  of  much  bodily  suffering, 
with  great  inconvenience  and  self-denying 
often  on  the  part  of  his  family,  exposing  him- 
self to  very  uncharitable  opinions  and  severe 
denunciations,  to  devote  himself  still  to  the 
one  object  of  opening  every  possible  avenue 
of  usefulness  for  the  remarkable  material  it 
had  pleased  God  to  permit  him  to  give  to 
mankind.  He  had  a  compensation  that  others 
could  not  understand.  He  says  of  himself, 
"  Independent  of  all  pecuniary  considerations, 
I  have  taken  great  satisfaction  in  trying  to 
invent  and  inprove  articles  of  necessity  and 
•convenience  for  the  use  of  man ; "  and  he 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  151 

adds,  "  Whatever  of  misfortune  may  hereafter 
befall  the  inventor,  he  will  have  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  his  efforts  have  been  success- 
ful, and  of  witnessing  on  every  side,  and  in 
every  civilized  country,  the  growing  impor- 
tance of  the  numerous  branches  of  manufacture 
already  established,  and  which  may  in  his  life- 
time be  established,  under  these  inventions  and 
improvements." 

When  quite  large  amounts  of  money  began 
to  come  in  from  his  various  licences,  whatever 
was  not  devoted  to  the  repayment  of  former 
indebtedness  and  his  small  personal  expenses, 
for  his  habits  were  very  simple,  was  freely  used 
in  his  constant  experiments,  continued  until 
nearly  the  last  day  of  his  life.  So  that  while 
the  community  esteemed  him  to  be  worth  mill- 
ions, his  estate,  when  the  hard-working  inventor 
fell  at  his  post,  was  indebted  for  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  His  life  was  an  illustration 
of  what  he  had  himself  written :  "  It  is  often 


152  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

reported  that  '  necessity  is  the  mother  of  inven- 
tion.' It  may  with  equal  truth  be  said,  that 
inventors  are  the  children  of  misfortune  and 
want.  Probably  no  class  of  the  community 
receive  a  smaller  compensation  for  their  labors 
than  do  inventors.  Their  hard  fortune  often 
calls  forth  the  expression  of  pity  and  compas- 
sion from  the  public;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
there  are  too  many  ever  ready  to  encroach  upon 
their  inventions  without  their  knowledge  or 
consent.  However  valuable  and  important  an 
improvement  may  be,  it  seldom  happens  that 
the  rightful  owners  are  benefited  by  it.  There 
is,  however,  in  such  cases,  an  alleviating  and 
controlling  reflection  to  well-disciplined  minds, 
which  is  this :  success  has  crowned  their  efforts 
to  do  that  which  they  attempted,  and  they  can 
leave  the  world  better  off  for  their  having  lived 
in  it." 

These  calm  and  noble  sentiments  were  writ- 
ten while  shrewd  and  unprincipled  men  were 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  153 

attempting  to  snatch  from  him  both  the  honor 
of  his  invention  and  the  comparatively  small 
pecuniary  compensation  that  he  was  deriving 
from  it.  The  demand  for  the  goods  was  so 
great,  that  it  was  but  a  short  time  before  the 
value  of  his  licenses  began  to  be  decreased  by 
the  illegal  manufacture  of  India  rubber  goods 
after  his  process.  In  the  sketch  of  his  own  life 
and  inventions,  which  Mr.  Goodyear  issued  in 
1855,  he  makes  but  slight  allusion  to  this. 
Probably  a  more  generous,  noble-hearted,  and 
charitable  man  never  lived.  "In  his  whole 
narrative,"  says  his  pastor  in  New  Haven, 
Dr.  Dutton,  "  there  is  not  one  severe  or  unkind 
word,  even  toward  the  man  who  so  greatly 
defrauded  him,  and  who  compelled  him  to  the 
trouble,  anxiety,  and  enormous  expense  of  con- 
stant litigation."  And  yet,  speaking  of  the 
injury  done -him  during  a  period  of  ten  years, 
Hon.  J.  Holt,  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Patents,  in  granting  him  an  extension  of  his 


154:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

patent  for  seven  years,  says  :  "  The  public  stip- 
ulated with  him  that  he  should  peacefully  enjoy 
for  fourteen  years  the  monopoly  created  by  his 
patent,  and,  had  he  been  permitted  to  do  so, 
he  would  no  doubt  long  since  have  realized 
an  ample  remuneration ;  but  so  far  from  this 
having  been  the  case,  no  inventor  probably  has 
ever  been  so  harassed,  so  trampled  upon,  so 
plundered  by  that  sordid  and  licentious  class  of 
infringers  known  in  the  parlance  of  the  world, 
with  no  exaggeration  of  phrase,  as  'pirates.' 
The  spoliations  of  their  incessant  guerrilla  war- 
fare upon  his  defenseless  rights  have  unques- 
tionably amounted  to  millions.  In  the  very 
front  rank  of  this  predatory  band  stands  one 
who  sustains  in  this  case  the  double  and  most 
convenient  character  of  contestant  and  witness ; 
and  it  is  but  a  subdued  expression  of  my  esti- 
mate of  the  deposition  he  has  lodged,  to  say, 
that  this  Parthian  shaft — the  last  that  he  could 
hurl  at  an  invention  which  he  has  so  long  and 


TKIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  155 

so  remorselessly  pursued — is  a  fitting  finale  to 
that  career  which  the  public  justice  of  the 
country  has  so  signally  rebuked." 

Several  of  the  parties  whose  personal  in- 
fluence and  testimony  were  used  during  the 
protracted  suits  brought  to  contest  his  rights 
were  those  who  were  making  immense  for- 
tunes out  of  his  inventions,  or  had  been  gen- 
erously aided  from  his  liberal  hand  in  the 
hour  of  their  necessities.  He  did  not  permit 
their  ingratitude,  however,  either  to  disturb 
his  equanimity  or  to  hinder  his  repetition  of 
acts  of  kindness  whenever  opportunities  for 
them  occurred.  His  nature  was  of  the  noblest 
order,  and  was  sanctified  by  Christianity. 
Upon  one  occasion,  when  his  son  remonstrated 
with  him  upon  his  doing  what  he  considered 
too  much  for  a  young  man  who  had  proved 
himself  to  be  dishonest  in  his  transactions 
with  him,  remarking  that  "  he  did  not  care 
how  much  his  father  gave  away  to  those 


156  TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

who  honestly  deserved  it,"  he  replied,  with 
the  utmost  gentleness,  "Where  should  we  all 
be,  my  son,  if  God  were  to  act  upon  these 
principles." 

Some  idea  of  the  immense  value  of  the  busi- 
ness which  Mr.  Goodyear  had  opened  up  for 
others,  may  be  formed  from  the  fact,  that  in 
six  years  from  the  time  he  discovered  the 
process  of  curing  the  rubber,  the  companies 
that  held  the  right  of  manufacturing  slices 
under  his  patent,  in  defending  themselves 
against  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Day  to  deprive  Mr. 
Goodyear  of  the  honor  and  emoluments  of  his 
invention,  paid  Daniel  Webster  a  fee  of 
twenty -five  thousand  dollars  for  his  triumph- 
ant argument;  a  sum  which,  Mr.  Parton 
remarks,  "it  is  questionable  whether  Mr. 
Goodyear  ever  realized  from  his  discovery, 
after  deducting  the  money  expended  in  devel- 
oping it." 

Mr.  Goodyear   had   thus    settled   it   in   his 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  157 

i 

mind,  through,  good  report  and  evil  report, 
with  or  without  a  fortune,  enjoying,  or 
suffering  the  loss  of,  the  sympathy  of  his 
friends,  to  use  the  remnant  of  his  life  in  ex- 
panding his  discovery,  which  he  now  believed 
perfect  in  itself.  The  material  could  not 
be  improved,  but  its  application  to  the  arts 
and  manufactures  might  be  almost  infinitely 
extended. 

He  had  also  a  patriotic  desire  to  make  his 
invention  a  national  benefit,  and  a  wholesome 
pride  of  being  able  to  offer  to  other  countries 
applications  of  his  discovery  that  would  deserve 
public  notice.  It  was  this  purpose  that  in- 
duced him  to  give  his  attention  to  ships'  sails, 
entering  upon  experiments  involving  great 
outlays  of  money,  to  mail-bags,  ships'  letter- 
bags,  life-boats,  army-tents  and  blankets,  gun 
covers,  pontoons,  wagon  covers,  and  for  all  the 
purposes  for  which  leather  is  used.  But  he 
felt  a  more  absorbing  interest  in  the  manufac- 


158  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

• 

tnre  of  articles  relating  to  the  preservation  of 
property  and  life.  Singularly  enough,  his  first 
and  last  experiments  were  upon  life-preservers. 
To  this  work,  he  says  in  1855,  "I  should  be 
glad  to  devote  myself  in  the  evening  of  my 
life."  He  adds,  that  there  is  no  real  necessity 
for  such  constant  loss  of  life  and  property  on 
the  sea  as  annually  occurs.  "  What ! "  he  says, 
"must  men  continue  to  be  drowned  because 
their  fathers  were?  Must  treasures  continue 
to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  deep  because  there 
are  offices  where  they  are  insured?  The 
loss  to  the  world  on  that  account  is  none 
the  less,  and  such  a  state  of  things  in  the 
present  age  need  not  and  ought  not  to 
exist." 

Upon  these  national,  useful,  and  humane  ex- 
periments he  lavished  the  means  that  came  to 
his  hand  or  were  supplied  by  his  friends.  He 
certainly  expected  ultimately  an  adequate  re- 
turn when  the  community  became  awake  to 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  159 

their  value ;  but  if  he  had  not  expected  this, 
his  earnest  enthusiasm  and  humanity  would 
have  inspired  him  to  the  same  sacrifices.  A 
letter,  written  from  England  in  1853  to  his 
brother-in-law,  whose  debtor  he  was  to  a  large 
amount,  exhibits  the  actual  pecuniary  condi- 
tion of  Mr.  Goodyear  during  what  may  be 
esteemed  the  most  successful  portion  of  his  life, 
his  great  purpose,  and  his  lively  sense  of  his 
obligations  to  his  friends.  It  was  rumored  at 
the  time  that  he  was  receiving  large  sums  of 
money,  which  he  was  lavishing  upon  his  fam- 
ily expenses.  "  My  dear  brother,"  he  writes, 
"I  left,  on  my  way  to  Paris,  last  night,  and 
rather  than  travel  on  the  .Sabbath  1  have 
stopped  here  (Folkstone)  for  a  day  of  rest.  A 
remark  in  your  letter,  in  which  you  quote  an 
expression  of  mine,  conveys  to  me  the  impres- 
sion that  you  deem  me  unmindful  of  your 
embarrassed  condition.  It  reminds  me  that 
justice  to  myself  demands  a  little  explanation. 


160  TRIALS^.  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

I  am  touched  like  some  old  Puritan,  who 
makes  it  a  point  of  Christian  duty  to  confess 
before  God  and  man  that  he  has  the  hardest 
heart  of  all  God's  creatures ;  but  so  much  as 
intimate  to  him  yourself,  that  he  is  not  the 
most  perfect  specimen  of  humanity,  and  no 
man  will  knock  you  down -quicker  than  he. 
To  remind  you  that  you  are  not  alone  in 
embarrassment,  that  I  am  not  rioting  in  inde- 
pendence, let  me  say  that,  three  months  before 
I  left  home,  I  borrowed  one  thousand  dollars 
of  a  friend  in  Boston,  and  during  the  illness 
of  my  wife  received  the  sharpest  rebuke,  and 
from  him  ;  yet  notwithstanding  this  claim 
had  hung  like  a  millstone  round  my  neck  to 
weigh  me  down,  it  was  not  till  yesterday  that 
I  have  seen  the  time  when,  in  justice  to  my- 
self and  all  others  who  have  claims  upon  me, 
I  could  pay  the  debt.  Mr.  B.,  too,  accepted 
for  my  accommodation  three  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars,  and  had  to  take  up  the  note. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  161 

This  remains  unpaid,  but  I  hope  to  discharge 
this  debt  the  coming  week.  There  are  yet 
more  of  these  that  weigh  upon  me.  As  relates 
to  your  case,  my  feeling  has  been  this :  that 
after  having  shown  the  good  people  of  New 
Haven  my  disposition  to  pay,  so  many  times, 
by  paying  them,  they  would  indulge  you  and 
me  in  the  liberty  I  have  taken  with  them  and 
you ;  and  I  had  hoped  with  this  indulgence  you 
would  be  comfortable.  I  feel  that  I  have  done 
all  that  mortal  man  could  do,  under  the  same 
circumstances,  to  recover  from  that  pecuniary 
indebtedness  to  my  fellow-creatures  into  which 
I  fell  in  early  life ;  and  in  striving  to  do  this, 
(which  I  know  myself  has  been  the  chief  ob- 
ject of  my  apparently  '  towering  ambition,')  I 
have  at  the  same  time  aimed  at  the  accom- 
plishment of  a  great  work  for  the  good  of 
mankind.  In  this  last  aim  I  need  not  tell 
you  that  I  have  been  successful,  as  I  hope 

to  be  in  the  other.     Vast  numbers  of  mankind 
11 


162  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

already  bear  witness  also  to  this.     I  only  wish 

they  could  know  you   and   others  who   have 

i 
aided  me.    Whether  I  shall  live  to  see  'the 

end'  I  know  not.  The  toil  of  the  struggle 
thus  far  onward  I  have  seen,  and  yet  I  have 
ever  had  a  feeling  which  seemed  to  me  very 
much  like  faith,  that  I  should  live  to  see  the 
end  of  that  embarrassment  and  those  trials  of 
life  which  arise  from  the  want  of  money 
enough.  "We  have  both  had  a  full  share  of 
trials  of  this  sort,  the  want  of  means  to  exe- 
cute our  plans,  but  many  others  we  have  not 
known;  and  God  only  knows  what  other 
trials  he  has  in  store  for  us,  when  this  one 
may  no  longer  be  the  burden  of  our  com- 
plaint. I  call  to  mind  Kimberton,  "Washing- 
ton Hill,  "Woburn  Plains,  the  cells  of  gloomy 
prisons,  and  two  visits  to  most  of  these ;  and 
yet,  for  the  most  part,  my  heart  was  light. 
Seldom  a  dark  cloud,  except  from  ill  health, 
darkened  my  sky  of  hope.  And  why  should 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  163 

there  ?  The  scene  shifts,  we  may  realize  our 
hopes  and  worldly  independence,  and  yet  sigh 
for  the  former  state,  in  which  our  cup  over- 
flowed with  blessing.  We  murmured  that 
God  did  not  bestow  all  his  blessings  upon  us 
at  once." 

Mr.  Goodyear  was  not  insensible  to  the  value 
of  economy ;  he  constantly  inculcated  it  in  his 
family,  and  appreciated,  to  the  fullest  extent, 
habits  of  frugality  and  thrift.  "  But,"  says  his 
son,  "in  his  efforts  to  arrive. at  some  desired 
result  in  his  experiments  he  felt  that  halfway 
measures  were  inefficient,  and  that  time  was 
more  than  money.  He  often  found  that  an  ex- 
periment tried  on  a  very  limited  scale,  though 
attended  with  apparent  success,  would  be  im- 
practicable when  attempted  on  a  large  scale; 
while  the  reverse  might  be  equally  true;  and 
he  was  thus  led  to  the  conclusion  that  true 
economy  for  him  was  to  develope  his  invention 
to  the  utmost  of  his  ability ;  and  to  this  end  he 


164:  TRIALS  OF  AN  LNTEXTOR. 

applied  himself  with  all  his  resources,  employ- 
ing, at  great  expense,  many  persons  in  various 
localities  wherever  he  could  best  attain  the  de- 
sired results."  That  some  of  his  experiments, 
as,  for  instance,  the  sails  of  ships,  have  not 
resulted  in  equal  success  with  others,  by  no 
means  stamps  the  attempt  as  visionary  or  un- 
wise. Large  sums  of  money  were  necessarily 
expended  on  this  experiment.  He  felt  a 
national  pride  in  such  a  work.  He  reasoned 
that  their  imperviousness  to  air  would  enable 
smaller  surfaces  to  be  spread  in  propelling  a 
vessel;  that  the  toughness  of  material,  and  its 
non-liability  to  mildew,  would  render  its  re- 
newal less  frequent;  and  its  defense  from 
freezing  would  take  away  much  from  the  suf- 
ferings of  the  sailor  upon  our  northern  coasts 
in  winter.  Captain  Popham,  upon  whose  ships 
these  sails  were  used,  gave  them  the  most  un- 
qualified praise.  Other  branches  of  the  trade 
requiring  less  capital,  and  already  command- 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  165 

ing  large  markets,  manufacturers  have  hesi- 
tated to  undertake  this  and  other  experiments 
of  this  indefatigable  man.  But  the  experi- 
ments have  been  tried  at  his  expense,  although 
not  for  his  benefit,  for  the  good  of  the  race 
and  for  all  time. 


166  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTEE  X. 

MR.   GOODYEAR  IN  EUROPE. 

FOR  several  years  Mr.  Goodyear  had  a  visit  to 
Europe  in  contemplation.  He  could  not  leave 
until  the  perplexing  lawsuits  in  reference  to 
his  patents,  which  spread  over  the  space  of 
seven  years,  were  settled.  He  desired  also  to 
secure  as  wide  an  application  of  his  discovery 
as  possible  to  the  useful  arts,  and  to  prepare  as 
many  samples  of  the  manufactures  as  was  in 
his  power,  to  take  with  him. 

He  knew  that  his  effort  to  secure  an  English 
patent  had  been  forestalled  by  Thomas  Han- 
cock, of  the  house  of  M'Intosh  &  Co.,  through 
peculiar  provisions  in  the  English  patent  laws. 
He  relied,  however,  upon  his  ability  to  prove, 
by  his  superior  skill  and  knowledge  of  his  own 
invention,  that  he  was  indeed  the  father  of  it — 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  167 

an  important  recognition,  which  he  did  after- 
ward secure  in  an  English  court  of  justice, 
Mr.  Hancock  admitting  that  the  first  specimen 
of  vulcanized  India  rubber  that  he  ever  saw 
was  shown  to  him  by  a  gentleman  sent  from 
America  by  Mr.  Goodyear  himself.  But  his 
chief  object  was  to  induce  manufacturers  abroad 
to  unite  with  him  in  the  production  of  the 
many  improvements  and  applications  which  he 
had  introduced  in  the  India  rubber  business, 
specimens  of  which  he  was  to  carry  with  him. 

The  prospect  of  large  success  in  such  an 
undertaking  seemed  favorable. 

In  1851,  the  great  International  Exhibition 
held  in  the  Crystal  Palace,  at  Hyde  Park, 
London,  afforded  him  a  peculiarly  favorable 
opportunity  of  introducing,  both  to  the  scien- 
tific and  practical  men  of  Europe,  the  improve- 
ments that  had  been  made  in  the  United 
States,  through  his  instrumentality,  in  India 
rubber  manufactures. 


168  TKIALS   OF  AN   INVENTOR. 

His  beautiful  specimens,  prepared  at  great 
expense,  the  exhibition  costing  him  the  sum  of 
thirty  thousand  dollars,  occupied  more  space 
in  the  exhibition  building  than  all  other  Amer- 
ican goods  combined.  For  the  first  time  in 
Europe,  he  exhibited  articles  of  household  fur- 
niture made  of  hard  rubber,  musical  instru- 
ments, and  India  rubber  globes  of  great  beauty, 
inflated  with  air  or  gas,  from  twelve  inches  to 
three,  and  even  six,  feet  in  diameter,  floating 
in  the  air,  besides  several  other  useful  or  orna- 
mental applications  of  the  same  material.  For 
hie  goods  in  this  exhibition  he  received  the 
"Grand  Council  Medal/'  the  highest  testi- 
monial given  at  the  fair,  only  three  of  which 
were  bestowed  upon  American  manufactures. 

These  rubber  goods  were  placed  in  an  ele- 
gantly constructed  suite  of  open  rooms,  made 
of  hard  rubber,  ornamented  with  handsome 
carvings,  carpeted  and  furnished  with  ar- 
ticles of  the  same  material.  When  the  Crys- 


TRIALS   OF  AN   INVENTOK.  169 

tal  Palace  was  removed  from  London  to  Syden- 
hain,  his  rubber  court  was  also  transferred, 
and,  for  several  years,  was  kept  open  for  the 
display  and  sale  of  India  rubber  articles  of  use 
and  ornament. 

In  the  following  year  Mr.  Goodyear,  accom- 
panied by  his  family,  sailed  for  Liverpool.  His 
health  was  at  this  time  very  poor,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  avail  himself  of  the  aid  of  his 
crutches.  Often  he  was  utterly  prostrated,  and 
obliged  to  keep,  for  weeks,  his  feed;  but  his 
courage  was  unbroken ;  and  in  a  strange  land, 
with  all  his  depressing  physical  troubles  and  his 
disappointments,  he  continued,  with  his  accus- 
tomed zeal,  his  experiments. 

For  many  months  he  had  expectations  of 
effecting  favorable  negotiations  with  the  indi- 
viduals who  had  superseded  him  with  the 
English  patent ;  but  at  last  he  became  wearied, 
and  was  convinced  that  the  parties  did  not  in- 
tend to  deal  fairly  with  him.  He  therefore 


170  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

closed  his  negotiations  in  this  direction.  As 
the  English  law  was  now  so  amended  as  to 
admit  of  patents  for  new  applications  of  known 
substances,  Mr.  Goodyear  endeavored  to  secure, 
if  possible,  some  compensation  in  this  way  for 
the  loss  of  the  original  patent,  by  taking  out  a 
large  number  of  patents  of  application.  ,Few, 
however,  of  the  important  articles  were  patent- 
able,  as  the  most  valuable  had  been  already 
anticipated  and  brought  into  public  use  by 
English  manufacturers.  Efforts  were  made  by 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Goodyear  to  establish  a  com- 
pany in  London  for  the  manufacture  of  India 
rubber  goods  under  these  patents;  but  the 
company  never  went  into  organization. 

A  keener  sorrow  than  these  multiplied  dis- 
appointments in  his  business  was  now  to  fall 
upon  him.  His  beloved  wife,  who  had  been 
the  constant  and  patient  participant  for  thirty 
years  of  all  the  sacrifices  and  sufferings  of  his 
remarkable  career,  and  had  lived  to  share  in 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  171 

the  early  honors  and  comforts  of  his  great 
success,  now  drooped  in  health,  and  in  spite 
of  every  eifort  that  affection  and  skill  could 
suggest,  sank  into  the  grave  in  March,  1853. 

Eev.  Mr.  Hunt,  for  two  or  three  years  pri- 
vate secretary  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  and  residing 
in  his  family,  speaks  of  Mrs.  Goodyear  as  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  women  he  ever  knew. 
She  was  endowed  with  a  very  strong  intellect ; 
but  her  crowning  grace  was  the  perfect  har- 
mony and  repose  of  her  life.  Without  any 
effort,  or  appearance  of  desire  to  secure  it,  she 
had  entire  control  over  her  husband  and  family. 
He  loved  to  repose  upon  her  judgment.  She 
was  particularly  faithful  with  her  children,  and 
was  one  of  those  rare  saints  on  earth  whose 
religion  shines  out  as  a  constant  benediction 
upon  her  face,  and  made  her  to  be  the  sunlight 
of  the  family. 

Dr.  Dutton  well  remarks  that  the  scriptural 
word  "  helpmeet "  best  describes  the  relation  of 


172  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

this  excellent  woman  to  her  husband ;  and  to 
her  enduring  faith,  in  no  small  measure,  is  to  be 
attributed  the  perseverance  and  final  triumph 
of  Mr.  Goodyear.  "  He  could  confide  in  her 
discretion,"  says  her  pastor,  "  as  well  as  her 
affection.  To  her  intelligence  and  wisdom,  and 
her  eminent  faith  and  piety,  he  could  entirely 
intrust,  amid  his  absorbing  occupation  and  fre- 
quent absence  from  home,  the  care  and  culture 
of  his  children.  And  in  all  the  alternations 
of  his  fortune,  and  especially  in  its  deepest 
depressions,  he  experienced  in  her  the  gentle- 
ness, the  patience,  the  equanimity  of  an  angel, 
and  move  than  the  sympathy  of  an  angel,  even 
the  sympathy  of  a  true  Christian  woman  and 
wife:1 

The  loss  of  his  wife  was  a  crushing  blow  to 
Mr.  Goodyear.  His  absorption  in  his  studies 
kept  him  from  cultivating  his  social  qualities, 
and  limited  his  intimate  companions  to  his  own 
little  family  circle.  His  health  at  this  time, 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  173 

and  even  until  the  close  of  his  life,  was  so  poor 
— he  was  so  liable  to  sudden  and  most  painful 
attacks  of  gout — that  the  brief  intervals  of  rest 
from  his  incessant  toil  were  spent  either  in 
driving  out  alone  with  his  wife,  or  on  the  sofa, 
soothed  by  her  reading;  or  when  too  much 
exhausted  even  for  this,  by  her  sitting  near  him 
in  perfect  silence.  Hour  after  hour  would  he 
sometimes  recline  in  this  manner,  too  feeble 
even  for  speech,  making  his  wants  or  his  feel- 
ings known  by  some  sign  of  the  lips  or  eyes. 
Frequently  he  was«o  unnerved  as  to  be  unable 
to  bear  even  the  entrance  of  a  child  into  his 
room.  His  wife  fully  understood  his  case, 
when  a  stranger  would  have  been  alarmed, 
and  supposed  him  to  be  near  his  end.  Calmed 
by  her  presence,  by  words  of  holy  faith,  by 
strains  of  inspiring  poetry  or  soothing  words' 
of  Scripture,  he  would  rally  his  exhausted 
energies,  and  rise  up  full  of  some  new  pur- 
pose, and  go  forth  to  labors  such  as  few  hale 


1Y4:  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

men  could  endure.  To  such  a  man  the  loss  of 
a  tried  and  sympathizing  partner,  who  alone 
possessed  the  magic  power  of  soothing  at  all 
times  his  weariness,  pain,  and  sickness,  was  in- 
deed a  burden  too  heavy,  without  divine  sup- 
port, to  be  borne.  The  lady  who  afterward 
became  his  wife  remarks :  "  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  impression  made  on  my  mind  by  the 
deep  melancholy  in  the  first  tones  of  his  voice 
that  ever  fell  upon  my 'ear,  as,  leaning  upon  his 
crutches,  he  was  first  presented  to  me." 

Mr.  Goodyear  was  agai*  peculiarly  favored 
in  his  domestic  relations  by  forming  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Miss  Wardell,  of  London,  the 
estimable  lady  who  still  survives  him,  and 
whose  strength  of  character  and  affection  sus- 
tained her  in  the  severe  trials  that  followed 
Mr.  Goodyear  almost  to  his  grave,  and  enabled 
her  to  give  to  him  such  sympathy  and  support 
as  only  a  loving  wife  can  offer.  He  was  mar- 
ried in  the  summer  of  1854. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  175 

The  remaining  portion  of  this  year  was  one 
of  the  few  sunny  spots  in  his  life.  His  mar- 
riage opened  to  him  a  pleasant  social  circle,  the 
relatives  of  his  wife,  whose  respect,  although 
they  had  heretofore  been  strangers,  and  igno- 
rant of  his  claims  to  public  notice  as  a  man  of 
genius  and  a  discoverer,  he  soon  won  by  his 
genial  temper,  profound  courtesy,  and  true 
modesty  of  character.  His  health  and  spirits 
improved,  and  his  business  seemed  to  be  open- 
ing with  great  promise. 

He  now  began  to  occupy  himself  with  prep- 
arations for  the  approaching  French  exhibition. 
To  facilitate  his  business  im  connection  with 
this  enterprise,  he  removed  his  family  to  Paris 
in  November  of  1854. 


176  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTER  XL 

MB.   GOODYEAR  IN  FRANCE. 

DURING  the  winter  of  1852-3  the  manufacture 
of  India  rubber  boots  and  shoes  was  commenced 
in  France  by  an  American  company  under  a 
license  from  Mr.  Goodyear,  and  the  business 
rapidly  grew  into  importance.  The  French 
patent,  which  Mr.  Goodyear  had  taken  out, 
was  the  first  publication  in  Europe  of  the  in- 
vention of  vulcanized  rubber.  At  this  time 
(1854)  an  American  gentleman,  full  of  enter- 
prize,  but  at  times  rash  in  his  speculations,  Mr. 
Charles  Morey,  undertook  to  negotiate  the  sale 
of  some  branches  of  the  India  rubber  manufac- 
ture, particularly  those  relating  to  the  hard 
compound,  with  the  French  manufacturers, 
and  Mr.  Goodyear  was  induced  to  place  the 
management  of  his  remaining  French  interests 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  177 

almost  wholly  in  his  hands.  For  about  two 
years  the  prospect  of  large  returns  from  this 
quarter  were  very  flattering ;  so  much  so,  that 
Mr.  Goodyear  was  led  to  make  extraordinary 
preparations  for  the  opening  of  the  "  Exposi- 
tion Universelle,"  in  Paris,  in  1855.  He  fitted 
up,  at  an  expense  of  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
two  elegant  courts  in  the  most  central  part 
of  the  exhibition  palace,  which  were  filled 
with  beautiful  inlaid  India  rubber  furniture 
and  ornamental  articles,  finely  carved,  caskets, 
and  rich  jewelry.  The  walls  were  hung  with 
valuable  portraits  painted  upon  panels  of 
India  rubber. 

The  immense  trade  that  has  since  arisen  in 
India  rubber  jewelry  shows  the  prc/phetic  wis- 
dom of  the  inventor,  and  forms  his  justifica- 
tion for  what  might  seem  to  be  the  extravagant 
outlay  of  this  occasion.  For  himself  and  fam- 
ily the  great  expense,  coupled  with  the  mis- 
management of  his 'agent,  proved  to  be  very 
12 


178  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

unfortunate  ;  but  for  the  expansion  of  the  busi- 
ness in  hard  rubber  it  was  only  a  wise  invest- 
ment. But  a  small  space  having  been  at 
first  allotted  to  American  exhibitors,  it  was 
increased  on  the  representation  of  a  committee 
of  Americans  in  Paris.  Afterward  it  became 
evident  that  comparatively  few  articles  would 
be  sent  from  the  United  States,  and  urgent 
requests  were  made  by  these  gentlemen  to  Mr. 
Goodyear  to  fill  up,  as  far  as  possible,  the 
vacant  space.  He  was  urged,  therefore,  by 
this  additional  patriotic  motive,  to  sustain,  as 
far  as  he  was  able,  the  honor  of  his  beloved 
country  in  the  exhibition. 

For  his  wonderfully  successful  exposition  of  his 
improvements  in  rubber,  he  had  conferred  upon 
him  by  the  French  emperor  the  "  Grand 
Medal  of  Honor"  and  the  "Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,"  the  highest  expression  of  ap- 
preciation of  genius  in  the  gift  of  the  French 
Court.  But  how  strange  the  vicissitudes  through 


5? 


TBIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOK.  179 

which  this  man  passed :  the  announcement 
that  the  decoration  of  the  "Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor"  had  been  accorded  to  him 
was  conveyed  to  him  by  his  son  while  he 
was  imprisoned  in  "  Clichy,"  the  debtor's  prison 
of  Paris ! 

Mr.  Morey,  his  agent,  speaking  French 
fluently,  endowed  with  remarkable  tact  for 
business,  had  awakened  an  extraordinary  inter- 
est in  the  rubber  trade,  and  developed  it  in 
a  few  months  into  proportions  that  could  only 
have  been  reached  by  a  healthy  growth  in  five 
or  six  years.  Three  large  companies  were 
formed,  and  commenced  the  manufacture  of 
various  articles  under  Mr,  Goodyear's  licenses. 

A  lawsuit,  involving  Mr.  Goodyear's  right 
to  his  French  patent  for  vulcanization,  was 
terminated  at  first  in  his  favor.  This  fact, 
together  with  the  great  success  attending  the 
first  manufactures,  especially  of  shoes,  increased 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  companies. 


180  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

.  Patents  were  taken  out  in  most  of  the  king- 
doms of  Europe.  His  son  and  daughter,  at 
the  request  of  one  of  the  largest  rubber  com- 
panies on  the  Continent,  established  in  Vienna, 
visited  the  capital  of  the  Austrian  empire,  to 
give  their  workmen  instructions  in  the  process 
of  manufacturing  rubber  shoes  after  the  patent 
of  their  father. 

But  now  came  serious  difficulties  which  had 
been  overloooked  in  the  brilliant  prospects 
that  attended  the  opening  of  the  undertaking. 
The  companies  lacked  experienced  workmen 
in  the  new  modes  of  combining  the  rub- 
ber compounds,  and  also  the  suitable  heavy 
machinery  for  preparing  the  gum.  The  decla- 
ration of  the  courts  in  favor  of  Mr.  Goodyear 
was  reversed  upon  a  technicality  in  the  French 
law ;  and,  just  at  this  time,  occurred  disastrous 
failures  in  business  in  the  United  States  which 
affected  the  standing  of  European  houses,  and 
altogether  served  to  destroy  the  apparently 


TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR.  181 

well-founded  promise  of  rapid  fortunes  which 
were  at  first  confidently  expected,  and  to  dis- 
courage the  stockholders  from  continuing  the 
business.  In  this  way  the  rubber  manufacture 
suffered  a  check  from  which  it  did  not  recover 
for  years. 

Mr.  Goodyear  had  received  large  amounts 
of  notes  from  these  companies  in  payment  for 
his  patent  rights.  Having  indorsed  these 
notes,  he  turned  them  over  to  parties  who 
had  made  articles  for  the  Exhibition,  and  to 
the  makers  of  a  new  machine  of  immense  pro- 
portions for  the  mixing  of  his  compounds  by 
a  new  process,  to  which  he  attached  great  im- 
portance. These  notes  were  not  paid  when 
they  became  due  ;  and,  although  the  machine 
was  not  yet  completed,  the  parties  interested, 
with  others  that  had  received  the  notes,  com- 
menced to  take  the  severest  legal  measures  with 
Mr.  Goodyear.  The  great  expenses  of  the  Exhi- 
bition rendered  it  impossible  for  him  at  once 


182  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

to  meet  these  large  demands,  so  unexpect- 
edly arising  out  of  the  failure  of  these 
companies. 

On  the  evening  of  the  5th  of  December, 
1855,  he  returned  to  his  hotel,  as  he  had  done 
many  nights  previously,  completely  worn  out 
by  the  efforts  he  had  made  to  obtain  an  exten- 
sion of  the  time  of  payment  upon  certain 
notes  which  had  fallen  due  a  few  days  before. 
He  had  already  been  arrested  three  times  for 
small  bills,  but  had  been  able  to  save  himself 
from  imprisonment  by  the  interposition  of 
friends.  On  this  evening  he  came  home  quite 
dispirited,  because  the  parties  holding  the 
notes,  who  were  the  manufacturers  of  the 
unfinished  machine,  refused  to  grant  him  any 
indulgence,  saying  that  such  was  the  pressure 
of  the  times  they  must  have  their  money. 
Weary,  and  suffering  from  an  attack  of  the 
gout,  he  laid  down  to  rest.  He  had  just 
fallen  into  a  peaceful  slumber,  when  the 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  183 

startled  wife  was  aroused  by  a  knock  at  the 
door.  An  indescribable  chill,  she  says,  ran 
through  her  frame,  the  presentiment  of  evil. 
She  arose,  and  opened  the  door.  A  face, 
which  she  had  seen  before,  showed  itself, 
and  the  eyes  at  once  peered  round  the  room, 
taking  in  all  its  contents.  Perceiving  the 
sleeping  sufferer,  the  intruder  exclaimed,  "I 
have  you  at  last !  Here  he  is ! "  At  these 
words  another  rough-looking  officer  entered, 
and  giving  a  whistle,  the  windows  of  the  bed- 
rooms, which  opened  out  upon  a  balcony, 
were  pushed  up,  and  two  other  men  made 
their  appearance. 

Mr.  Goodyear  at  once  comprehended  the 
situation,  and  raising  himself  in  the  bed,  asked 
the  men  politely  what  warrant  they  had  for 
taking  a  sick  man  out  of  bed  after  sundown. 
They  replied  by  showing  a  special  permit, 
which  they  had  obtained  to  arrest  him  even 
on  Sunday,  or  after  sunset  and  before  sunrise, 


184  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

on  the  plea  that  he  was  a  foreigner,  and  in- 
tending to  escape  to  the  United  States.  He  re- 
quested to  be  left  alone  to  dress,  but  this  was 
refused.  The  earnest  request  of  Mrs.  Good- 
year, to  be  permitted  to  accompany  him  to  the 
prison  to  act  as  his  interpreter,  as  he  did  not 
readily  speak  French,  was  granted.  They 
walked  through  the  long  halls  of  the  large 
hotel,  Mr.  Goodyear  upon  his  crutches,  attended 
by  the  four  guards,  and  took  a  cab  in  the  street 
to  proceed  to  the  Clichy  prison.  The  judge, 
whose  office  it  is  to  admit  prisoners,  had  retired, 
but  he  was  soon  dressed  and  present  in  the 
office.  The  process  of  commitment  was  at  once 
finished.  The  wife  earnestly  sought  the  priv- 
ilege of  passing  the  night  with  her  husband  on 
account  of  his  illness.  This,  of  course,  could 
not  be  permitted.  She  accompanied  him  to 
the  massive  iron  doors  that  shut  off  the  court- 
room and  offices  from  the  interior  of  the  prison; 
the  jailer  and  her  husband  passed  inside,  and 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  185 

the  door  closed.  Conducted  back  to  the  office, 
she  obtained  from  the  judge  the  information  re- 
quired to  secure  permission  to  visit  her  husband, , 
and  then  rose  to  return  to  the  hotel.  The  judge 
considerately  asked  if  she  had  kept  the  cab.  The 
bailiffs  answered  that  they  had  dismissed  it.  He 
then  asked :  "  Gentlemen,  which  of  you  will  see 
Madame  home?"  The  men  hesitated.  The 
judge  rose  angrily,  saying,  "  Then,  gentlemen,  I 
will  go  home  and  dress,  and  see  Madame  home 
myself;  a  lady  ought  not  to  go  through  these 
streets  after  midnight  alone."  One  of  the  men 
upon  this  consented  to  take  Mrs.  Goodyear 
under  his  charge.  They  walked  down  the  dark 
Eue  de  Clichy,  and  the  sad  wife  before  she  was 
seated  in  a  cab  had  reason  to  be  grateful  for 
even  the  upgracioiis  attentions  of  her  protector. 
In  the  morning  Mrs.  Goodyear  took  meas- 
ures to  secure  at  the  proper  office  a  ticket  ad- 
mitting her  to  visit  her  husband  in  his  cell. 
She  was  closely  questioned  by  the  clerks 


186  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

whether  this  "  was  the  Goodyear  of  Caoutchouc^ 
about  whom  there  had  been  so  much  in  the 
papers,"  etc.  She  visited  also  the  gentlemen 
in  the  city  with  whom  her  husband  had  here- 
tofore transacted  business,  and  laid  before  them 
his  situation,  seeking  their  aid  to  procure  his 
release.  She  was  received  coldly  by  all,  with 
the  exception  of  one  generous-minded  man, 
who  promised  to  see  Mr.  Goodyear,  and  confer 
with  him  as  to  what  steps  could  be  taken  to  aid 
him. 

Somewhat  relieved  of  the  great  burden  which 
she  had  been  bearing  upon  her  heart,  she  hast- 
ened to  the  prison.  Having  been  carefully 
examined,  and  her  person  searched,  she  was 
admitted.  The  prisoners  stared  at  her  from 
their  grated  windows  as  she  passed  along  the 
corridors,  as  if  a  woman's  presence  was  an  un- 
usual sight  within  those  walls.  She  found  her 
husband's  cell  closed  and  he  absent  from  it. 
A  good-natured  Italian,  just  then  passing  and 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOR.  187 

noticing  her  dilemma,  at  once  offered  to  go  in 
search  of  Mr.  Goodyear.  Opening  the  door 
of  his  cell,  he  left  her  there,  and  soon  re- 
turned, saying  that  Mr.  Goodyear  was  com- 
ing as  quickly  as  possible,  being  compelled 
to  use  his  crutches  from  the  attack  of  the 
gout  under  which  he  was  suffering.  He  met 
his  wife  cheerfully,  was  perfectly  calm,  and 
even  hopeful.  To  her  inquiry  "  how  he  had 
passed  the  night,"  he  answered,  taking  both 
of  her  hands  in  his  and  looking  steadily  in  her 
face,  "  I  have  been  through  nearly  every  form 
of  trial  that  human  flesh  is  heir  to,  and  I  find 
that  there  is  nothing  in  life  to  fear  but  sin  !  " 
a  golden  sentence,  that  it  is  worth  a  lifetime  of 
severe  discipline  to  be  able  to  utter. 

After  prayer  together,  and  the  business  mes- 
sages she  had  brought  had  been  delivered,  Mr. 
Goodyear  took  his  wife  with  him  in  search  of 
two  fellow-countrymen  whom  he  had  found; 
for  so  far  from  yielding  himself  to  repinings 


188  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVEXTOE. 

at  his  lot,  to  the  contemplation  of  his  troubles, 
or  to  the  simple  endurance  of  the  acute  bodily 
pain  that  he  was  then  suffering,  he  commenced 
at  once  to  look  about  him  for  some  opportunity 
to  do  a  kind  service  to  any  one  subjected  to  the 
same  discomforts  as  himself  without  his  re- 
soures  for  relief.  These  two  Americans  he  had 
been  attempting  to  cheer,  and  to  study  how  he 
might  practically  aid  them. 

This  was  characteristic  of  his  whole  life.  He 
had  no  sooner  obtained  his  own  freedom,  than,  re- 
turning to  his  hotel,  he  went  to  his  bureau,  took 
out  his  flannel  clothing,  and  went  back  immedi- 
ately to  the  prison,  to  proffer  to  these  suffering 
countrymen  the  additional  comfort  which  these 
garments  would  afford  in  the  chill  and 
dampness  of  their  cells.  His  Bible,  a  book 
of  prayers,  and  the  writing  to  which  he  was 
compelled  by  his  extended  business,  occupied 
his  waking  hours  in  the  prison.  He  remarked 
that  the  being  locked  in  at  night  was  the  only 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  189 

thing  lie  noticed.  The  brick  floor,  the  straw 
bed,  the  grated  window,  the  bitter  cold,  the 
loneliness  of  the  cell,  were  all  borne  without 
a  murmur. 

Of  this  incident  a  writer  in  the  "Hours  at 
Home,"  for  September,  1865,  remarks :  It  is 
"  but  one  out  of  many  similar  trials  borne  with 
equal  heroism  by  this  remarkable  man.  Few 
persons  appreciated  him.  All  who  knew  his 
history  marveled  at  his  indomitable  persever- 
ance amid  such  aggravated  and  protracted  trials 
and  opposition,  with  so  little  seeming  chance 
of  success,  and  still  less  of  reward;  but  we 
have  the  clue  to  it  in  his  own  simple  answer  to 
the  question,  what  sustained  him  through  those 
long  years  of  disappointment  and  failure  ?  '  It 
was  faith — if  I  know  what  faith  is.'  This  faith, 
not  in  himself  nor  his  own  genius,  of  which  he 
seemed  scarcely  conscious,  but  in  God,  to 
whom,  from  his  earliest  years,  he  had  dedicated 
himself,  and  whose  love  and  providing  and  pro- 


190  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVEKTOB. 

tecting  care  for  him  lie  never  doubted,  was  the 
main-spring  of  his  whole  life :  inspiring  his 
energies ;  making  him  strong  for  the  battle  of 
life;  prompting  to  generosity  and  true  benefi- 
cence, even  when  on  the  verge  of  want ;  filling 
him  with  hope  and  undoubting  confidence  of 
success  in  the  work  God  had  given  him  to  do ; 
and  keeping  him  from  despair  when  crushed 
by  poverty,  sickness,  failure,  or  disappoint- 
ment, and  from  a  murmur  or  an  unforgiving 
word  when  persecuted,  forsaken,  neglected,  or 
injured. " 

The  sudden  fall  from  the  height  of  prosper- 
ity and  success  to  such  a  depth  of  worldly 
depression,  to  the  loss,  apparently,  of  every- 
thing, and  to  imprisonment  in  a  foreign  land 
— such  a  transition  from  the  applause  of  the 
public,  the  adulations  of  the  press  as  a  man  of 
high  genius  and  of  great  prospective  wealth,  to 
the  contempt  which  falls  upon  an  unfortunate 
alien,  supposed  to  be  fleeing  from  his  creditors 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  191 

— was,  without  doubt,  keenly  felt  by  one  of  so 
honorable  and  sensitive  a  nature,  but  it  did  not 
for  a  moment  shake  his  confidence  in  the  good 
providence  of  God. 

The  book  of  Job,  as  might  be  naturally  sup- 
posed, was  a  great  favorite  with  him,  and  he 
studied  it  with  peculiar  interest.  There  were 
portions  of  it  that  he  could  not  read  aloud  on 
account  of  the  deep  emotion  it  stirred  within 
him ;  its  illustrations  of  the  mysteries  of  Prov- 
idence were  full  of  instruction  and  comfort  to 
him  in  such  hours  of  disappointment  and  suf- 
fering as  those  through  which  he  was  now 
passing. 

In  after  days  he  regarded  the  painful  events 
of  this  period  as  a  providential  interposition  to 
prevent  his  settling  down  with  his  family  in 
Paris,  and  bringing  up  his  children  amid  the 
temptations  and  worldliness  of  the  French 
capital. 


192  TRIALS   OF  AN  INVENTOR. 


CHAPTEE  XL 

RETURN  TO   ENGLAND. 

IMMEDIATELY  upon  his  release  from  Clichy 
prison,  December  21,  1855,  he  was  compelled 
by  his  business  to  return  to  England.  The 
result  of  his  French  reverses  followed  him,  and 
caused  him  much  annoyance.  After  the  return 
of  the  family  to  London  in  February,  1856,  he 
was  again  arrested  upon  these  French  demands, 
and  detained  for  a  few  days  in  a  sheriff's  office, 
as  he  would  not  accept  the  bail  offered  by  his 
English  friends,  preferring  to  remain  under 
arrest  until  he  could  prove,  as  he  soon  did,  that 
his  detention  was  secured  by  fraud.  He  was 
then  honorably  discharged.  His  daily  letters, 
written  to  comfort  his  wife,  then  prevented 
by  illness  from  visiting  him,  breathe  the  most 
cheerful,  generous,  and  Christian  temper. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  193 

In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Goodyear,  written  just 
after  he  had  been  set  free  from  prison,  he  says : 
"  Sickness  and  sorrow,  like  health  and  joy,  are 
brief  at  the  longest.  God  hath  set  the  one  over 
against  the  other.  I  write  you  from  the  snug 
little  parlor  at  the  'Pavilion,'  where  hangs 
the  engraving  of  the  convale'scent  soldier  from 
Waterloo,  his  wife  and  baby  by  his  side,  and 
on  the  other  side  of  the  room  the  prisoner 
chiseling  the  image  of  Christ  on  the  prison 
wall  with  a  nail.  How  one  would  like  to  know 
that  man !  There  was  good  for  others,  and  we 
may  hope  for  him  from  this  suffering.  This 
brings  my  mind  to  reflect  upon  the  occurrences 
of  the  past  month.  I  cannot  but  believe  they 
were  ordered  for  some  special  purpose  for  my 
good,  or  for  that  of  my  family,  even  in  this  life, 
and  that  it  will  be  explained  here.  Satan  was 
once  let  loose  in  this  way  upon  poor  Job ;  not 
that  I  presume  to  compare  myself  with  that 

good  man.     Yet,  scrutinizing  my  conduct  as 
13 


194:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

closely  as  I  can,  I  cannot  censure  myself  for,  or 
really  regret,  after  what  has  happened,  any- 
thing which  I  have  done,  which  others  might, 
in  ignorance  of  the  circumstances,  suppose  to 
be  the  cause  of  such  persecutions,  which  often 
are  occasioned  by  a  man's  own  folly  or  impru- 
dence. Committing  you  and  all  dear  to  us  to 
God's  kind  care,  trusting  that  he  will  deliver 
us  in  every  day  of  trial  until  we  are  safely 
brought  to  a  happy  death  and  immortal  life 
through  our  Saviour,  I  am,  etc." 

This  constant  and  severe  strain  upon  a  con- 
stitution always  weak  from  chronic  infirmities, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  proved  too  much 
for  him,  and  he  was  attacked  with  the  most 
serious  and  alarming  of  all  his  many  seasons  of 
illness  excepting  the  last.  His  life  was  de- 
spaired of;  he  took  leave  of  his  family  and  sent 
farewell  messages  to  his  friends.  It  was  not 
until  the  eighth  of  April,  1856,  that  he  was 
able  to  be  removed  by  easy  stages  in  a  private 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  195 

carriage  to  Bath.  For  nine  weeks  he  was  un- 
able to  move  hand  or  foot,  and  seemed  to  be  in 
constant  peril  of  death.  .He  made  the  city  of 
Bath  his  residence  until  he  sailed  for  America 
in  May,  1858. 

These  two  years  proved  to  be  a  period  of  great 
embarrassment  to  him,  his  ill-health  preventing 
him  from  giving  that  attention  to  his  business 
which  it  required.  His  office  was  his  sick 
chamber,  and  his  desk  the  bed  upon  which  he 
was  prostrated.  There  appeared  to  be  no  way 
to  escape  the  grasp  of  money-lenders  but  to  re- 
new his  notes,  at  a  very  high  rate  for  interest 
and  commissions.  His  affairs  in  America 
were  suffering  from  his  absence.  Some  of  his 
licensees,  indeed,  fulfilled  their  obligations,  but 
others  required  legal  measures  to  compel  the 
fulfillment  of  their  contracts ;  while  one,  whose 
duty  it  was,  as  attorney,  to  attend  to  his  inter- 
ests in  that  regard,  used  his  position  to  serve  his 
own  private  ends,  and  to  amass  wealth  for  him- 


196  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB. 

self;  so  that  it  is  questionable  whether  Mr. 
Goodyear  suffered  more  detriment  from  the 
piracies  of  open  enemies,  than  from  the  schemes 
of  his  own  agent. 

Mr.  Goodyear  continued  his  studies  in  the 
application  of  rubber  to  the  arts  during  all  these 
hours  of  feebleness.  Often  he  would  arouse  his 
wife  in  the  night,  and  ask  her  if  she  was  too  fa- 
tigued to  write  for  him,  remarking,  as  the  reason 
for  the  untimely  request,  "  I  have  not  closed 
my  eyes  yet,  for  I  believe  I  have  thought  of 
the  true  way  of  overcoming  a  difficulty;" 
sometimes  adding,  "  I  have  been  studying  that 
for  so  many  years,"  mentioning  the  time.  He 
would  then  dictate,  more  rapidly  than  his 
wife  could  write,  the  precise  directions  to 
some  workman  who  was  making  experiments 
for  him,  and  perhaps  a  number  of  letters  and 
papers  of  importance.  Having  thus  relieved 
his  mind,  he  would  fall  asleep. 

His  labors  during  his  last  summer  in  England 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  197 

were  principally  spent  upon  the  perfecting  of  a 
senes  of  inventions  for  saving  life  in  water,  and 
a  severe  illness  was  the  consequence  of  undue 
efforts  to  which  he  was  prompted  by  the  read- 
ing of  some  statement  relative  to  the  number  of 
persons,  in  the  whole  world,  who  were  drowning 
every  day.  The  figures  were  alarming,  and 
for  many  nights  Mr.  Goodyear  could  not  sleep. 
When,  one  night,  his  wife  asked  him  what  was 
the  cause  of  his  continued  sleeplessness,  he  re- 
marked, "  How  can  I  sleep,  when  so  many  of 
my  fellow-creatures  are  passing  into  eternity 
every  day,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  the  man  that 
can  prevent  it." 

"It  was  long  his  endeavor  to  invent  some 
garment  wliich  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
would  necessarily  wear,  and  which  would  make 
it  impossible  for  them  to  sink.  He  exper- 
imented with  various  articles  of  clothing ;  and, 
though  he  left  his  principal  object  incomplete,  he 
invented  many  ingenious  contrivances  for  saving 


198  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB. 

life.  He  had  the  idea  that  every  article  on 
board  a  vessel,  seizable  in  a  moment  of  danger, 
every  chair,  table,  sofa,  and  stool,  should  be  a 
life-preserver."  * 

Even  at  this  day,  so  embarrassed  was  he  for 
means,  and  yet  so  earnest  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
investigations,  that  his  own  watch  chain,  his 
wife's  gold  chain  and  diamond  ring,  a  wedding 
present  from  himself,  and  other  jewelry,  were 
pawned  for  ready  money  to  carry  on  these  ex- 
periments. 

The  winter  which  preceded  Mr.  Goodyear's 
return  to  his  native  land,  says  his  wife,  was 
"one  of  deep  trial,  constant  sickness,  acute 
bodily  and  mental  distress,  and  great  pecuniary 
inconvenience  and  anxiety.  The  history  of  that 
period  can  never  be  told." 
*Parton. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  199 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CLOSING-  LABORS  AND  DEATH. 

As  the  period  for  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Good- 
year's  first  patent  drew  near,  it  became  neces- 
sary to  take  measures  to  secure  its  extension  by 
an  application  to  the  commissioner.  Thus  far 
he  had  expended,  in  developing  and  bringing 
into  general  use  the  results  of  his  great  dis- 
covery, more  than  he  had  received  from  it.  He 
had  introduced  an  immense  and  profitable  trade 
into  the  country.  Thousands  of  laborers  were 
supplied  with  remunerating  employment  j  many 
persons  were  building  up  large  fortunes ;  while 
he,  exhausted  in  health  by  his  unremitted  labors 
and  anxieties,  with  a  dependent  family,  had  no 
resources  save  those  he  might  and  ought  to 
draw  from  the  great  invention  which  he  had 
given  to  his  countrymen.  The  small  royalty, 


200  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

which  no  purchaser  would  feel,  and  which 
would  be  an  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  great 
profits  pouring  into  the  hands  of  the  manufac- 
turers, would  form  but  a  small  compensation  for 
his  services. 

Every  effort,  however,  which  money  and 
political  influence  could  command  was  put  into 
requisition  to  deprive  him  of  this.  The  appli- 
cation rested  upon  its  merits,  and  we  have  seen 
on  a  previous  page  of  this  biography  how 
strongly  these  were  presented  in  the  official 
report  of  Mr.  Commissioner  Holt.  It  was 
characteristic  of  the  man,  significant  of  the 
real  greatness  and  true  nobility  of  his  nature, 
and  of  his  confident  and  cheerful  repose  upon 
the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Divine  Prov- 
idence, that,  in  a  letter  written  to  his  wife  the 
day  before  that  which  was  to  decide  whether  he 
should  be  penniless,  an  invalid  without  physical 
strength  to  turn  to  any  other  form  of  labor 
to  support  himself  and  his  dependent  family, 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOK.  201 

he  exhibits  the  same  calm  reliance  upon  God. 
"  Indeed,"  says  his  wife,  "  the  letter  is  almost 
a  psalm  of  thanksgiving,  without  one  word 
of  anxiety  or  suspense,  recounting  the  mercies 
and  deliverances  of  his  past  life."  He  had 
used  all  the  honest  means  in  his  power, 
and  having  devoutly  committed  the  matter 
into  the  hands  of  God,  he  calmly  awaited 
the  result. 

The  objection  to  the  renewal  of  his  patent,  after 
the  statement  in  reference  to  the  immense  sums 
he  was  said  to  have  already  received  was  proved 
to  be  unfounded,  was  based  upon  the  charge  made 
by  parties  interested  in  destroying  his  claim,  that 
he  was  wasteful  and  reckless  about  his  money 
affairs.  Upon  such  an  accusation,  again  urged, 
when  a  second  and  unsuccessful  application 
was  made  by  his  family,  for  a  renewal  by  Con- 
gress, after  his  death,  Hon.  James  T.  Brady, 
before  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, remarked:  "That  he  expended 


202  TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

thousands  upon  thousands  in  prosecuting  his 
experiments  in  India  rubber  is  quite  true,  but 
it  is  just  as  true  that  he  expended  little  on  him- 
self. There  is  one  great  fact  to  demonstrate 
that  he  sunk  his  means  in  experiments,  namely, 
that  he  died  in  debt,  which  his  assets  cannot 
pay.  Now  what  became  of  his  money?  Did 
he  spend  it  in  pleasure  ?  Had  he  any  costly 
vices  or  habits  ?  On  the  contrary,  he  was  a 
small,  attenuated,  sickly  man,  with  a  com- 
plexion intensely  sallow,  pale,  a  weak  stomach, 
faltering  limbs,  and  feeble  almost  as  a  puny 
child.  Aside  from  love  of  family  and  friends 
he  had  but  one  worldly  idea,  that  was  India 
rubber.  It  was  the  sole  object  of  his  study  and 
occupation.  Money  could  purchase  little  or 
nothing  for  the  gratification  of  such  a  man." 

"Those  who  would  censure  Mr.  Goodyear 
for  permitting  his  estate  to  become  so  much 
involved,"  says  Mr.  Parton,  "should  consider 
that  his  discovery  was  not  profitable  to  himself 


TEIALS  OF  AJT  INVENTOB.  203 

for  more  than  ten  years,  that  he  was  deeply  in 
debt  when  he  began  his  experiments,  that  his 
investigations  could  be  carried  on  only  by  in- 
creasing his  indebtedness,  that  all  his  bargains 
were  those  of  a  man  in  need,  that  the  guileless- 
ness  of  his  nature  made  him  the  easy  prey  of 
greedy,  dishonorable  men,  and  that  his  neglect 
of  his  private  interests  was  due  to  his  zeal  for 
the  public  good." 

The  favorable  termination  of  the  present  ap- 
plication enabled  him  to  enter  afresh  upon  the 
study  of  his  life.  The  idea  of  ceasing  his  ex- 
periments in  order  to  devote  himself  to  the  ac- 
cumulation of  property  was  as  foreign  as  ever 
from  his  purpose. 

In  the  winter  of  1859  he  purchased  a  house 
in  Washington,  and,  for  the  first  time,  gathered 
the  unmarried  portion  of  his  family  together 
under  his  own  roof.  He  often  remarked  dur- 
ing the  short  period  that  he  remained  in  it, 
that  he  "  had  never  had  such  a  quiet  home  be- 


204:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

i 

fore;"  and  although  still  busy  daily  with  his 
experiments,  he  would  add  "  that  he  had  never 
had  so  much  rest,  or  taken  life  so  easily."  "  It 
was  the  foretaste,"  says  Mrs.  Goodyear,  "of 
that  eternal  rest  which  he  was  so  soon  to  en- 
ter." He  had  one  room  in  his  house  fitted  up 
as  a  workship,  with  a  large  bath  for  the  trial  of 
his  life-preserving  apparatus.  He  remarked  to 
his  wife,  only  a  few  days  before  he  left  his 
home,  never  to  return  to  it  again,  "  that  he  had 
never  made  his  experiments  with  so  much  ease 
and  success  before."  By  a  singlar  coincidence, 
as  has  been  heretofore  remarked,  his  last  labors 
in  India  rubber  were,  like  his  first,  devoted  to 
life-saving  boats  and  apparatus. 

Here,  as  we  approach  the  close  of  this  active 
and  fruitful  life,  we  may  for  a  moment  consider 
the  great  additions  made  to  human  comfort 
and  progress  by  the  discovery  of  Mr.  Good- 
year. The  business  of  manufacturing  rubber 
articles  has  constantly  increased  since  his 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOE.  205 

death,  but  he  anticipated  nearly  all  its  appli- 
cations to  the  arts.  What  he  said  has  proved 
true,  "  that  no  one  but  himself  would  take  the 
trouble  to  apply  his  material  to  the  thousand 
uses  of  which  it  was  capable,  because  each  new 
application  demanded  a  course  of  experiments 
that  would  discourage  any  one  who  entered 
upon  it  only  with  a  view  to  profit."  "He 
lived,"  says  Parton,  "to  see  his  material  ap- 
plied to  nearly  five  hundred  uses,  to  give  em- 
ployment in  England,  France,  Germany,  and 
the  United  States  to  sixty  thousand  persons ; 
annually  producing  in  this  country  alone  mer- 
chandise of  the  value  of  eight  millions  of  dol- 
lars. But  we  should  greatly  undervalue  the  la- 
bors of  Charles  Goodyear  if  we  regarded  them 
only  as  opening  a  new  source  of  wealth;  for 
there  have  been  found  many  uses  of  India  rub- 
ber, as  prepared  by  him,  which  have  an  impor- 
tance far  superior  to  their  commercial  value. 
Art,  science,  and  humanity  are  indebted  to 


206  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

him  for  a  material  which  serves  the  purposes  of 
them  all,  and  serves  them  as  no  other  known 
material  could. 

"  {Some  of  our  readers  have  been  out  on  the 
picket  line  during  the  war.  They  know  what 
it  is  to  stand  motionless  in  a  wet  and  miry  rifle- 
pit,  in  the  chilling  rain  of  a  southern  winter's 
night.  Protected  by  India  rubber  boots,  blank- 
et, and  cap,  the  picket  man  performs  in  com- 
parative comfort  a  duty  which,  without  that 
protection,  would  make  him  a  cowering  and 
shivering  wretch,  and  plant  in  his  bones  a 
latent  rheumatism  to  be  the  torment  of  his  old 
age.  Goodyear's  India  rubber  enables  him  to 
come  in  from  his  pit  as  dry  as  when  he  went 
into  it,  and  he  comes  in  to  lie  down  with  an 
India  rubber  blanket  between  him  and  the 
damp  earth.  If  he  is  wounded,  it  is  an  India 
rubber  stretcher,  or  an  ambulance  provided 
with  India  rubber  springs,  that  gives  him  least 
pain  on  his  way  to  the  hospital,  where,  if  his 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  207 

wound  is  serious,  a  water-bed  of  India  rubber 
gives  ease  to  his  mangled  frame,  and  enables 
him  to  endure  the  wearing  tedium  of  an  un- 
changed posture.  Bandages  and  supporters  of 
India  rubber  avail  him  much  when  first  he  be- 
gins to  hobble  about  his  ward.  A  piece  of 
India  rubber  at  the  end  of  his  crutch  lessens  the 
jar  and  the  noise  of  his  motions,  and  a  cushion 
of  India  rubber  is  comfortable  to  his  arm-pit. 
The  springs  which  close  the  hospital  door,  the 
bands  which  exclude  the  drafts  from  doors  and 
windows,  his  pocket-comb  and  cup  and  thimble, 
are  of  the  same  material.  From  jars  hermeti- 
cally closed  with  India  rubber  he  receives  the 
fresh  fruit  that  is  so  exquisitely  delicious  to  a 
fevered  mouth.  The  instrument  case  of  his 
surgeon,  and  the  store-room  of  his  matron,  con- 
tain many  articles  whose  utility  is  increased 
by  the  use  of  it,  and  some  that  could  be  made 
of  nothing  else.  In  a  small  rubber  case  the 
physician  carries  with  him  and  preserves  his 


208  TRIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOH. 

lunar  caustic,  which  would  corrode  any  metallic 
surface.  His  shirts  and  sheets  pass  through  an 
India-rubber  clothes-wringer,  which  saves  the 
strength  of  the  washerwoman  and  the  fiber  of 
the  fabric.  When  the  government  presents 
him  with  an  artificial  leg,  a  thick  heel  and 
elastic  sole  of  India  rubber  give  him  comfort 
every  time  he  puts  it  to  the  ground.  In  the 
field,  this  material  is  not  less  strikingly  useful. 
During  the  late  war  armies  have  marched 
through  ten  days  of  rain,  and  slept  through  as 
many  rainy  nights,  and  come  out  dry  into  the 
returning  sunshine,  with  their  artillery  untar- 
nished and  their  ammunition  uninjured;  because 
men  and  munitions  were  all  under  India  rub- 
ber. When  Goodyear's  ideas  are  carried  out, 
it  will  be  by  pontoons  of  inflated  India  rubber 
that  rivers  will  be  crossed.  A  pontoon  train 
will  then  consist  of  one  wagon  drawn  by 
two  mules;  and  if  the  march  is  through  a 
country  that  furnishes  the  wooden  part  of  the 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  209 

bridge,  a  man  may  carry  a  pontoon  on  his  back, 
in  addition  to  his  knapsack  and  blanket. 

"  In  the  naval  service  we  meet  this  material  in 
a  form  that  attracts  little  attention,  though  it 
serves  a  purpose  of  perhaps  unequaled  utility. 
Mechanics  are  aware  that,  from  the  time 
of  James  "Watt  to  the  year  of  1850,  the 
great  necessity  of  the  engine-builder  was  a  per- 
fect joint — a  joint  that  would  not  admit  the 
escape  of  steam.  A  steam-engine  is  all  over 
joints  and  valves,  from  most  of  which  some 
steam,  sooner  or  later,  would  escape,  since  an 
engine  in  motion  produces  a  continual  jar  that 
finally  impairs  the  best  joint  that  art  could 
make.  The  old  joint  process  was  exceedingly 
expensive.  The  two  surfaces  of  iron  had  to 
be  most  carefully  ground  and  polished,  then 
screwed  together,  and  the  edges  closed  with 
white  lead.  By  the  use  of  a  thin  sheet  of  vul- 
canized India  rubber,  placed  between  the  iron 

surfaces,  not  only  is  all  this  expense  saved,  but 
14 


210  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

a  joint  is  produced  that  is  absolutely  and  per- 
manently perfect.  It  is  not  even  necessary  to 
rub  off  the  roughness  of  the  casting,  for  the 
rougher  the  surface  the  better  the  joint.  At 
present  all  engines  are  provided  with  these 
joints  and  valves,  which  save  steam,  diminish 
jar,  and  facilitate  the  separation  of  the  parts. 
It  is  difficult  to  compute  in  money  the  value 
of  this  improvement.  We  are  informed,  how- 
ever, by  competent  authority,  that  a  steamer  of 
two  thousand  tons  saves  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year  by  its  use.*  Such  is  the  demand  for  the 
engine  packing,  as  it  is  termed,  that  the  owners 
of  the  factory  where  it  is  chiefly  made,  after 
constructing  the  largest  water-wheel  in  the 
world,  found  it  insufficient  for  their  growing 
business,  and  were  obliged  to  add  to  it  a  steam- 

*  This  is  the  statement  of  Mr.  Parton.  Without  having  an 
opportunity  to  verify  or  correct  it,  we  can  only  express  the 
opinion  that  the  amount  seems  very  large,  and  would  be  more 
probable  if  stated  simply  in  reference  to  the  original  outlay  in 
the  construction  of  the  steamer. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  211 

engine  of  two  hundred  horse-power.  The  New 
York  agent  of  this  company  sells  about  a 
million  dollars'  worth  of  packing  per  annum. 
Belting  for  engines  is  another  article  for  which 
Goodyear's  Compound  is  superior  to  any  other, 
inasmuch  as  the  surface  of  India  rubber  clings 
to  the  iron  wheel  better  than  leather  or  fabric. 
It  is  no  small  advantage  to  save  leather  for 
other  uses,  since  leather  is  an  article  of  which 
the  supply  is  strictly  limited.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon for  India  rubber  belts  to  be  furnished, 
which,  if  made  of  leather,  would  require  more 
than  a  hundred  hides."* 

An  immense  business  has  grown  up  out  of 
the  manufacture  of  the  India  rubber  car  springs, 
which  have  made  the  railroad  coaches  so  easy 
and  pleasant  in  their  rapid  motions.  Of  late 
very  successful  experiments  have  been  made  in 
the  substitution  of  India  rubber  for  gold  and 
other  minerals  in  the  manufacture  of  sets  of 
*  North  American  Review,  p.  94,  July,  1865. 


212  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

artificial  teeth.  This  material  is  lighter,  more 
durable,  and  can  be  kept  cleaner,  as  no  acids 
corrode  it.  There  is  no  limit  to  its  nse  by  the 
physician  and  surgeon  in  the  manufacture  of 
their  instruments  and  appliances;  and  handles 
of  the  finest  cutlery,  the  most  beautifully  carved 
jewelry,  and  a  great  variety  of  stationery,  are 
made  of  this  material.  It  can  only  be  com- 
pared, as  Mr.  Parton  remarks,  in  its  useful- 
ness, with  such  indispensable  articles  as  glass, 
brass,  steel,  paper,  and  porcelain.  It  was  the 
great  privilege  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  after  a  life 
of  extraordinary  endurance,  to  present  to  his 
countrymen  and  to  the  race  this  wonderful  ad- 
dition to  the  useful  and  beautiful  materials 
that  enter  so  largely  into  the  civilization  of 
the  times. 

His  appointed  work  was  now  completed, 
although  in  no  degree  had  the  fire  of  his 
enthusiasm  gone  down.  His  mind  pursued  its 
wonted  channels  of  study  with  unabated  inter- 


TEIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  213 

est  until  the  last.  But  his  health  and  strength 
were  evidently  declining.  The  attacks  of  ill- 
ness, from  which  he  had  been  a  constant 
sufferer,  now  returned  at  shorter  periods,  and 
were  more  severe. 

Of  his  religious  life  his  wife  remarks :  "  Dur- 
ing his  last  winter  with  us  there  was  a  marked 
ripening  for  glory;  a  growing  gentleness  and 
forbearance  ;  an  increased  spirituality  of  mind, 
and  a  superiority  to  earthly  care  and  anxiety, 
which  made  me  often  feel  how  near  he  was 
walking  to  his  God."  His  great  life-work  had 
been  truly  a  religious  one,  and  a  means  of  grace 
to  himself.  He  had  said,  years  before,  to  his 
niece  and  her  husband,  who  went,  says  Dr. 
Dutton,  "  with  his  approbation  and  sympathy 
as  missionaries  of  the  Gospel  to  Asia,  that  he 
was  God's  missionary  as  truly  as  they  were." 
He  had  finished  the  work  God  had  given  him 
to  do.  The  harvest  takes  upon  itself  the  color 
of  the  sun  when  it  is  ready  to  bow  before  the 


214:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

sickle,  and  Mr.  Goodyear,  to  the  eyes  of  those 
who  knew  him  best,  was  beginning  to  wear  the 
golden  coloring  of  the  skies.  The  hour  had 
come  for  the  faithful  servant  to  receive  from  the 
Master  his  "  Well  done,"  and  to  enter  into  the 
joy  and  rest  of  his  Lord. 

On  the  30th  of  May,  1860,  he  heard  of 
the  dangerous  sickness  of  his  daughter,  in 
New  Haven,  and,  in  the  hope  of  seeing  her 
once  more  alive,  with  a  part  of  his  family, 
accompanied  by  his  physician,  Dr.  Bacon, 
although  himself  very  feeble,  he  left  "Washing- 
ton for  Connecticut.  As  he  was  too  weak  to 
bear  a  railroad  journey  of  such  length,  he  was 
advised  to  take  the  steamer  to  New  York. 

He  suffered  severely  from  sea-sickness,  which 
was  very  unusual  to  him.  In  writing  to  his 
wife,  who  was  detained  at  home  by  illness,  in 
reference  to  his  sickness,  he  adds  characteristic- 
ally, "  But  Providence  always  smiles  in  the 
storm  as  well  as  in  the  sunshine."  It  was  also 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR.  215 

a  characteristic  trait  of  the  man,  that  in  this 
letter  he  alludes  to  the  attentions  of  the  steward 
and  servants.  He  had  a  remarkable  power, 
by  his  thoughtful  kindness  and  gentleness,  of 
attaching  strongly  to  himself  those  that  served 
near  his  person,  or  labored  in  his  employment. 
The  steward  of  the  steamer  Montebello,  on 
which  he  came  from  Washington  to  New 
Tork,  who  had  never  known  him  except  dur- 
ing this  voyage,  when  he  heard  of  his  sick- 
ness, came  three  times  to  his  hotel  to  hear 
how  he  was,  and  if  possible  to  see  him.  When, 
a  year  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Goodyear,  his 
wife  visited  England,  she  received  many 
touching  proofs  of  the  respect  and  affection  in 
which  his  memory  was  held,  from  those  that 
had  been  in  his  employment. 

Upon  reaching  the  dock  in  New  Tork  he 
was  met  by  his  son-in-law,  who  informed  him 
of  the  death  of  his  daughter.  He  was  too  ill  to 
continue  his  journey  to  New  Haven  to  attend 


216  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOK. 

the  funeral,  but  remained  at  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel.  He  seemed  from  the  first  to  have  a 
presentiment  of  his  approaching  end.  He  sent 
for  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  De  Forest,  and  ar- 
ranged, as  far  as  he  could,  his  business  affairs. 
That  night  his  faithful  and  intelligent  physi- 
cian said  to  Mr.  De  Forest,  " This  is  the  last!" 
It  was  thought  expedient  to  inform  his  wife 
of  his  sickness,  although  her  health  seemed  to 
forbid  her  coming  to  New  York.  On  the  7th 
of  June,  however,  Mrs.  Goodyear  reached  his 
bedside,  expecting  to  find  him  very  sick,  but 
quite  unprepared  for  the  announcement  that 
he  was  hopelessly  ill.  He  recognized  his  wife, 
-although  unable  to  pursue  any  connected  con- 
versation from  that  time  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
Twice  during  his  sickness  he  gathered  all  the 
members  of  the  family,  that  were  present  with 
him,  by  his  bed-side,  for  prayer  and  his  parting 
blessing,  referring  to  each  person  by  name. 
Even  when  his  mind  was  partially  obscured  by 


TRIALS  Or  AN  INVENTOR.  217 

disease,  his  confident  trust  in  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence which  had  been  the  inspiration  and 
solace  of  his  life,  afforded  him  manifest  comfort. 
In  the  midst  of  his  perplexities  and  wander- 
ings he  would  frequently  say,  "  God  knows." 
Sometimes,  looking  at  his  wife  with  intense 
earnestness,  he  would  add,  "  God  knows  all." 
His  sufferings  during  all  his  last  sickness  were 
severe  in  the  extreme,  yet  he  preserved  the 
same  gentleness,  gratitude,  and  love  to  all  to 
the  very  last.  The  marked  characteristic  of 
his  life — his  truly  Christian  spirit  of  forgive- 
ness— received  an  affecting  illustration  in  his 
dying  hours.  His  last  audible  expression  to  his 
wife,  when  he  was  dying,  was  a  charge  to  for- 
give a  person  from  whom  he  had  suffered 
much.  His  humility  was  as  conspicuous  as  his 
gentleness.  "  One  who  knew  him  thoroughly," 
says  his  pastor  in  his  funeral  discourse,  says 
that  "  the  most  marked  features  of  his  religious 
character  were  deep  consciousness  of  the  evil  of 


218  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOB. 

sin,  and  of  his  nothingness  before  God.  Self- 
reliant  as  he  appeared  as  a  business  man,  his 
soul  was  most  humble  before  God,  and  he 
seemed  more  deeply  conscious  of  his  depend- 
ence upon  him,  and  need  of  forgiveness  as  well 
as  of  forbearance,  than  any  other  person  with 
whose  religious  experience  I  have  any  intimate 
acquaintance."  In  his  last  hours,  when  refer- 
ence was  made  to  his  useful  works,  he  humbly 
and  devoutly  responded,  "What  am  I?  To 
God  be  all  the  glory." 

On  Sunday  morning,  July  1,  1860,  without  a 
sigh  or  a  struggle,  his  released  spirit  left  its 
wasted  body,  and  rose  to  its  heavenly  rest  and 
reward  in  the  presence  of  its  Redeemer.  Just 
as  the  bells  were  ringing  for  divine  service, 
half  raising  himself  from  the  pillow,  as  if  he 
saw  some  one,  he  sank  back  again,  and  was  at 
once  a  worshiper  in  the  upper  sanctuary. 


APPENDIX. 


IT  would  be  impossible  to  exhibit  more  clear- 
ly the  distinct  conception  which  Mr.  Goodyear 
had  of  the  nature  and  availability  of  his  great 
discovery,  than  to  present  the  following  circu- 
lar, which  was  prepared,  and  sent  out,  at  the 
time  he  obtained  his  patent  in  1844 : 

The  subscriber  has  invented,  or  discovered,  a 
Metallic  Gum  Elastic  Composition. 

He  is  prepared  to  demonstrate,  by  ocular  and 
irresistible  evidence,  that  this  Gum  Elastic  Composi- 
tion possesses  extraordinary  and  valuable  qualities ; 
namely,  that, 

1.  No  degree  of  heat,  without  blaze,  can  melt  it. 
It  remains  unaltered  in   the  torrid   zone.     Heat 
without  blaze,  more  intense  than  280  degrees  Fah- 
renheit, chars  it  like  wood. 

2.  It  continues  flexible  in  any  degree  of  cold. 
The  contact  of  ice  itself  does  not  stiffen  it. 

3.  In  durability  it  surpasses  any  other  material 
applicable  to  similar  uses. 

4.  Its  elastic  power  is  superior  to  that  of  com- 
mon India  rubber,  and  is  retained  unaffected  by 
heat,  cold,  or  continued  stretching. 


220  TRIALS  OF  AN  INYENTOB. 

5.  Of  itself,  or  in  combination  with  fabrics  of 
cotton,  or  other  material,  it  can  be  made  of  any 
desirable  strength,  with  or  without  elasticity. 

6.  It  resists  the  most  powerful  chemical  reagents. 
Aquafortis,  sulphuric  acid,  essential  and  common 
oils,  turpentine,  and  other  solvents,  which  destroy 
the  native  gum,  wood,  leather,  and  metals,  produce 
no  effect  upon  this  composition,  except  that  long- 
continued  immersion  in  pure  aquafortis,  or  sulphuric 
acid,  chars  it. 

7.  It  possesses  valuable  medical  qualities,  being 
a  substitute  for  oiled  silk,  furnishing  hydrostatic 
beds,  and  a  great  variety  of  articles  used  in  surgery. 

8.  It,  as  well  as  the  fabrics  with  which  it  is  used 
in  combination,  can  be  washed  in  boiling  water, 
with  lime  or  lye,  without  injury. 

9.  Like  other  Gum  Elastic   Composition,  it  is 
water-and-air-proof. 

10.  It  is  not  liable  to  be  injured  by  rats,  moths, 
or  other  vermin. 

11.  It  can  be  moulded  or   embossed  like  wax, 
and  can  be  prepared  in  sheets  of  any  thickness  or 
thinness. 

12.  It  will  take  any  color. 

13.  It  will  take   Japan  varnish,  and    equals   in 
beauty  patent  leather,  as  it  surpasses  it  in  many 
other  qualities. 

14.  It  takes  impressions    more   delicately  than 
the  finest  paper. 

15.  It  can  be  woven  or  braided. 

16.  It  can  be  napped,  like  broadcloth  or  plush. 


TKIALS  OF  AN  ESTVEXTOR.  221 

17.  It  can  be  rendered  perfectly  tasteless,  and 
inoffensive  in  point  of  odor. 

18.  Its  contraction,  after  having  been  stretched 
in  threads  between  two  adhering  thicknesses  of 
cotton,  silk,  or  other  flexible  materials,  shirs  or 
corrugates  the  fabric  in  a  new  and  beautiful  man- 
ner, and  renders  it  applicable  to  a  variety  of  uses. 

He  is  also  prepared  to  demonstrate,  by  means  of 
samples  and  other  evidence,  that  this  composition 
can  and  will  be  advantageously  employed  in  a 
great  number  of  useful  ways. 

1.  It  is,  for  many  purposes,  a  cheaper  and  better 
substitute  for  leather. 

2.  It  is,  for  many  purposes,  a  cheaper  and  better 
substitute  for  cloth  and  hair-cloth. 

3.  It  is,  for  many  purposes,  a  cheaper  and  better 
substitute  for  oiled  cloth. 

4.  It  is,  for  many  purposes,  a  cheaper  and  better 
substitute  for  oiled  silk. 

5.  It  is,  for  many  purposes,  a  cheaper  and  better 
substitute  for  paper  and  parchment. 

6.  The  shirred  or  corrugated  goods  are  peculiar, 
and  for  many  purposes  are  unrivaled. 

This  composition  can  be  economically  and  use- 
fully employed, 

1.  In  almost  every  article  of  external  clothing, 
particularly  where  protection  from  cold  and  rain, 
or  durability,  are  desired. 

2.  In  trimming  carriages. 

3.  For  harness  of  all  kinds. 

4.  In  building,  particularly  for  roofs  and  cisterns. 


222  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

5.  In  furniture,  (land  and  sea,)  particularly  for 
carpets. 

6.  For  firemen's  dresses,  for  fire  and  water  hose. 

7.  For  the  binding  of  books. 

8.  As  a  substitute  for  paper  and  parchment,  and 
for  maps  and  charts. 

9.  For  the  canvas  and  rigging  of  ships,  supply- 
.  ing  them  also  with  compact  boats,  life  preservers, 

letter-bags,  perhaps  with  sheathing  and  caulking 
materials. 

10.  For  belts  and  banding  of  machinery,  and  for 
smiths'  bellows. 

11.  For  bags,  bagging,  compact  casks,  rope  and 
tarpaulins,  used  in  securing  and  transporting  mer- 
chandise, dry  or  liquid. 

It  is  especially  applicable  to  the  wants  of  gov- 
ernment. t 

I.  To  the   post-office  it  supplies  the  cheapest 
and  best  mail-bag,  and  ships'  letter-bag.      A  bag, 
water-proof,    more   durable   than   riveted  leather, 
incapable  of  sinking  when  filled  with  papers,  un- 
alterable by  climate. 

II.  To  the   Indian  department  it  furnishes   an 
artificial  buffalo   robe    cheaper   and   better   than 
any  blanket. 

III.  To  the  Army  it  will  supply, 

1.  Tents. 

2.  Tent  carpets. 

3.  Tarpaulins. 

4.  Gun  covers. 

5.  Knapsacks. 


TRIALS  OF  AN  INTENTOB.  223 

6.  Blankets. 

1.  Cartridge  cylinders. 

8.  Pontoons. 

9.  Magazines. 

10.  Soldiers'  Dresses  and  Equipments. 

11.  Baggage  Wagon  Covers  and  appurte- 

nances, securing  to  the  camp  much 
of  the  safety  and   comfort  of  bar- 
racks. 
IV.  To  the  Navy,  it  will  furnish 

1.  Canvas,  for  sails. 

2.  Rigging. 

3.  Boats. 

4.  Life-preservers. 

5.  Buoys. 

6.  Fenders. 

7.  Gun  Covers. 

8.  Gun  BYeechings. 

9.  Spring  Cables. 

10.  Perhaps,  Sheathing  Materials. 

11.  Perhaps,  Caulking  Materials. 

12.  Carpets. 

13.  Awnings. 

14.  Tarpaulins. 

15.  Cartridge  Cylinders. 

16.  Fire  Screens. 

17.  Tanks,  holding  fresh  water  for  ballast. 

18.  Hose. 

19.  Buckets. 

20.  Magazines. 

21.  Water  Bags. 


224:  TRIALS  OF  AN  INVENTOR. 

22.  Provision  Bags. 

23.  Sailors'  and  Mariners'  dress  and  equipments. 

24.  Hammock    Cloths,    Hammocks,   and   Ham- 

mock Bags. 

The  above  mentioned  are  some  of  the  qualities 
and  uses  of  this  composition.  It  is  not  pretended 
that  all  the  fabrics  of  this  composition  possess, 
alike,  all  the  qualities,  or  are  applicable  to  all  the 
uses,  before  enumerated ;  each  kind  of  fabric  pos- 
sesses those  qualities  which  are  desirable  for  the 
uses  to  which  it  should  be  applied.  A  cloth  in- 
tended to  sustain  friction  would  be  different  from 
a  cloth  designed  to  resist  pulling  or  straining ;  and 
light,  semi-transparent  fabrics,  suitable  for  print- 
ing upon,  being  finished  by  a  peculiar  process, 
do  not  possess,  as  they  do  not  require,  some 
of  the  qualities  which  are  desirable  in  heavier 
goods. 

This  composition  has  been  already  subjected  to 
chemical  analysis,  to  thorough  and  practical  tests 
by  men  of  science  and  by  the  Government  of  the 
United  States. 

In  now  presenting  it  tp  the  public,  the  subscri- 
ber invites  the  most  searching  investigation,  and 
the  most  severe  trial.  CHAELES  GOODYEAB. 

NEW  YOBK,  October,  1844. 


THE  END. 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 

DATE  DUE 


MAR  04  1988 


A    001  441  575    6 


LIBRA 


